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LOVE LETTERS OF THE BACHELOR 
POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 








/^ w : - .- llv:w ^^"Ka, I*-*^^- n V, a V"WA v^-*^ »/* ^ **C. 



LOVE LETTERS 



The portrait of Riley on the left is from a tintype 
take^m }l-3i7^,i - ItOWa? seiif to Miss Elizabeth 
Kahle, accompanied by these verses, as shown in 

JAME'§ WilTCpMB jRILEY 

** I send you the shadowy ghost of a face, 

To haxmt you forever with eyes 
That look in your own with the tenderest grace 
, Affectionate art can devise. 

MIS^J'iitlS^iS^KMr Um^^i speak 

In the language of smiles and of tears, 
NOW i^Kk rakibowief love wooid illonaiaxesthe cheek 
w-Axsi ba2i!usk<l!be gLoornvJii^ appears. 

In his letter to Miss Kahle of October 10, 1879, 
Riley said: — 

"And I write now simply to enclose a long-prom- 
ised tin-typey for it is not a likeness, as in spite of 
all attempts my face refuses to be reproduced in 
even 'shadowy similitude.' The general contour 
of head and features, however, is exact, and the 
eyes are positively the best I have ever succeeded 
in getting. Biit this picture I intend to suppress 
as soon as I succeed in getting a successful photo- 
graph of the present Riley, — for now, as I told 
!5*0tf/^tBy'rfac©sii^a toarcesBiMifiseirt^twith no oasis in 
the shape ofwacunastaajhe to break its broad monot- 
ony c^ desolation, and I only send you this that 
ou mky hold it as a sort of hostage until my 
prese^a^^turjjjjs^^ves; then you must 
return ix. r ^ ^ 



th;i 



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— :biB2 xP^i9L 

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ni 2i2B0 on illiw ,ii929b n9TiBd b. ai ^o»\ -^niy i^pox 
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iBiffn-^n^- n4di' iieviriB il92 siuJui ba& Jn929iq 

" Ji niirt9i 



LOVE LETTERS 



OF 



THE BACHELOR POET 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



TO 



MISS ELIZABETH KAHLE / 



NO'W FIRST PRINTED FROM THE ORIGINALS 
WITH NUMEROUS FACSIMILES 




PRIVATELY PRINTED, EXCLUSIVELY FOR 
MEMBERS OF 

THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 

BOSTON — MCMXXII 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 

V 
THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 



All righti resened 



OCT 10 "12 V 

^CU683612 



FOREWORD 

It has been observed that an author sel- 
dom appears at his best in writing love 
letters, for such tender missives do not 
generally arouse much enthusiasm in any 
one but the individual to whom they are 
addressed, — not excepting the author him- 
self, who in the calmer moments of disen- 
chantment is apt to marvel at his own 
unguarded effusiveness. The love letters 
of Robert Browning afford one of the rare 
exceptions to this rule, and the present 
group of letters written by James Whitcomb 
Riley to Miss Elizabeth Kahle, of New 
Brighton, Pa., are unquestionably the most 
noble — as they are also the most self-re- 
vealing — utterances that ever fell from his 
pen. 

An author of either prose or verse may 
reveal but little of self in his published 
works, but in these unconventional auto- 
graph letters the popular American Poet 
discloses the innermost recesses of his 
[9] 



nature in a light that will greatly enhance 
the admiration of even his most devoted 
adherents. They will likewise be of almost 
equal interest to those who know their 
author only by name. In fact, had they 
been written by an unknown hand they 
would be no less entitled to a permanent 
place in our literature. 

Although these letters were intended for 
no other eyes than those of the one to whom 
they were written, the bond of privacy has 
been loosed, since their recipient has 
voltmtarily disposed of them with the full 
understanding that they are to be given to 
the world, and with the feeling that they 
will afford a better appreciation of the true 
character of their author. The correspond- 
ence having begun and continued for up- 
wards of three years before they met, her 
profoimd and lasting regard for him was 
fostered largely by these intimate letters, 
and she desires now in her latter days that 
the medium through which she came so 
closely in touch with the human qualities of 
his heart and soul be imparted to others in 
order that they, too, may know and esteem 
110] 



his personal traits, as they aheady know 
and admire the fruits of his genius. ' 

Owing to the fact that the young lady was 
an entire stranger to Riley at the com- 
mencement, he felt it necessary at first to 
write much about himself, which happily he 
did. In one of the early letters — that of 
February 21, 1879 — he says: "I recognize 
the fact that you know nothing of my history, 
my character, social position and all that, — 
perhaps don't care to, yet I believe it a duty 
that I owe both to you and to myself at this 
juncture, to assure you of the fact that I am 
a young man and unmarried. I write senti- 
mental verses occasionally, simply because 
I don't believe in love and am anxious to 
convince myself of my error, possibly — I 
don't know why else. I have many friends, 
but more enemies, and can scarcely tell 
which I most enjoy — for I really enjoy 
being hated by some people. I am cynical 
in a marked degree, and disagreeable at 
times, I most frankly admit. Socially I 
move in the best circles, — not, perhaps, 
because I was *to the manor born,' but 
because — because^ — well, I recite dialectic 
[111 



poems acceptably, sing comic songs and 
make funny faces, all of which seems to 
please everybody but myself, for when I 
seem the happiest is when I feel the most 
like crying — though there are times I could 
take the whole world in my arms, and love 
it as I would a great, fat, laughing baby with 
a bunch of jingling keys. . . . 

"When at home (my home is like yours, 
as I guess, in one respect, — the mother isn*t 
there) — when at home I live mechanically, 
much like the house-plants — not so obtru- 
sive perhaps, but quite as silent. I never 
speak — only to ask for more sugar for my 
coffee, or to say, 'I'm too busy to waste time 
at the wood-pile — I'll send a boy' (for I 
have a step-mother, by the way, whose 
chief delight is in rasping matter-o'-fact 
ideas over my aesthetic sensibilities). 
*What is a home without a (step) Mother!' 
— Give it up. So I stay here in my down- 
town room curled up like a wooley-worm, 
and, when at work, quite happy in spite of 
Fate, Misfortune, etc., etc." 

And of her letters to him he says: "Your 
letters, drifting out of the unknown and 
[12 1 



eddying about me in this far-off land, come 
to me like truant whiffs of perfume from 
enchanted vales . . . When you write, tell 
me more about yourself. Do as I do, — 
talk of nothing but yourself." 

The five year period over which the 
correspondence extends was the most im- 
portant of the Poet^s life, — beginning in 
the obscure days when he was struggling 
against adverse fates, and closing just as 
he was approaching the goal of his ambi- 
tion. But whatever may be the rewards of 
Fame, neither happiness nor contentment 
appear to have been among her awards to 
our Hoosier Poet. For although most of 
the letters are of a hopeful and courageous 
tenor, in one of the last of the series, fol- 
lowing one in which he writes enthusiasti- 
cally of having returned home triumphant 
after having "conquered'' the East, he says: 
**I am still meeting with more and more 
success, but that seems even more pitilessly 
pathetic than the old-time agony of effort 
and hunger for it. What is to become of it 
all I hardly care. I am only stoically wait- 
ing for the issue. . . . The beautiful vases 
[13] 



came, but one was broken — that one is 
me! The other is yourself, so it is very 
good to look upon, and I have brought it 
home, where all my best things are, to- 
gether with your pictures — and they glad- 
den all the gloom of the old home that needs 
them so." And again, eighteen months 
later, — "Time seems utterly stagnant — 
and my Ufe and all, and everything. I go 
about and I write some, but always I am 
very tired and blue and hopeless. The sun 
shines, but / don't." All of which may be 
compared to the feelings of one who climbs 
laboriously to some lofty mountain peak, 
only to find the summit barren, bleak and 
unsatisfying. 

The discovery of these veritable human 
documents is the more opportune because 
no comprehensive Life of Riley has yet 
appeared, and however faithful any future 
biography may be it could scarcely be more 
revelatory than the contents of the present 
volume, which — apart from the interesting 
romance it brings to light — must therefore 
be regarded as a valuable accessory to his 
published works. They supply indubitable 
[14 1 



proof of the source from which he derived 
the inspiration for many of his finest poems ; 
they reveal a side of his nature but little 
known to his readers, and they contain 
withal a graphic account of his struggles, 
disappointments and successes in his slow 
but determined evolution from poverty and 
obscurity to affluence and fame. His estab- 
lished place in the foremost ranks of Ameri- 
can poets is now universally acknowledged, 
and since his death the number of **Riley" 
collectors has steadily increased, until his 
manuscripts, letters and first editions are 
numbered among the coveted prizes of the 
auction room. 

Throughout the years that Riley was in 
correspondence with Miss Kahle (who later 
became Mrs. Brunn) he sent her many 
newspaper and magazine clippings contain- 
ing his poems and accounts of his work in 
literature and on the lecture platform. The 
letters contain numerous references to such 
items, and his correspondent states that she 
also received a great number of clippings, 
of which no mention was made in the letters. 
Many of these which she considered of 
[15] 



little or no importance were either lost or 
destroyed; but among the items that were 
preserved there is a poem which will be of 
much interest to the literary world. This 
poem, which does not appear to have been 
included in Riley's published works, was 
probably written in 1880, when he was on 
the editorial staff of the Indianapolis Jour- 
nal^ and was printed on a four-page leaflet 
(see facsimile), addressed as a ''New 
Year's Greeting of the Carriers of the 
Indianapolis Journal^ It is quite possible 
that the manuscript perished in the printing 
office after serving its purpose in the com- 
positor's hands, and that Riley himself for- 
got about it in after years when his poems 
were first brought together and published 
in book form. Furthermore it is not at all 
likely that more than a very limited number 
of the leaflets were issued, and owing to the 
fact that the poem was unsigned, and the 
further fact that newspaper ''carriers" are 
not usually gifted with the collector's in- 
stinct, it is doubtful if many copies were 
long preserved. — Indeed it may be that 
the one he sent to Miss Kahle is the only 
[16 1 










i4Wi mMEE 

OF THE 



►i-l-Carriers-^^ 



OF THE 



iiiliiiiiiipiiliis flailp 1 0iir 




-^' 



rti)il2t^^ 




T wari the nighty ere New Yearns night, 

And a poet sat in a dreary gloomy 
Lit with a glimmer of anthracite, 

That grimly gleamed in the cheerless room; 
And a dim lamp winked in a dismal way 

Back in the eyes, so weighed with care 
That the tired li<U-. drooped o'er the page that lay 

Still untouched on the table there. 

lie hod counts-;<l liis teeth with his pencil tip 

In a long "vain search for a New Year's theme— 
lie had drummed the rubber against his lip, 

And drowsed with the eyes that would not dream 
And over and over a thousand times 

lie had twirled the pencil to and fro. 
And danced each end through a thousand rhymes 

Used for a thousand times or so. 

And he dashed it aside at last and said: 
"It is as vain for a man to seek 
A New Year's song in an old year's head, 
As the rose of youth in an old man's cheek. 





What remains for the minstrel's tongue 

When his art has grown but a cheerless thing? 

When his song is the same he has always sung, 
What is there left for a man to sing?" 

And lo! as he bent in a grief profound, 

The table ti[)ped, and the pencil rolled 
Rack in the hand that had dashed it down, 

And a low voice spake in his ear. " Behold, 
Rest shall come to the weary brain, 

And on your eyes till the early dawn 
Sleep shall dwell and oblivion reign — 

While hand and pencil still write on." 

And so he slej^t, or it seemed he slept, 

P)Ut ever his shut eyes seemed aware 
( »t the pencil still in his fingers kept. 

Scrawling rhymes o'er the pages there — 
Scrawling, just of itself alone, 

Quips and jingles of quaint design, 
Such as never his mind had known. 

Or thought invented, or could define. 

And to start with, now," the pencil wrote. 

■'1 will sing you a song of the olden days. 
When the bard's cue powdered his crimson coat 

As he read to the King his roundelays. 
I will sing you a song of Christmas cheer 

So old that the poet who writ the stave 
Lies buried, hundreds of years from here, 

Safe with his songs in an unknown grave;" 



-^^QNe-j^" 



And it is a song for Christmas 

Ye would have me sing this night, 

While ye wassail steams on ye table, 
And ye yule-fire crackles bright. 

And it is a merry chanson, 

Full heartsome and warm with cheer. 
Whose echoes hid in ye rafters 

Shall clap their hands to hear. 

Then ho, for ye i hii^ of holly, 
And ho/ for ye sparkling wine, 

And ho/ for ye chimes of Christmas times 
In this jovial song of mine. 







Ye kine may moo in ye stable, 
And ye milkmaid blow her nails, 

And ye milk home come with a frosty skum 
Crusting ye milking pails. 

Ye brook may leap from its laughter 

To a silence of frozen foam, 
And ye cock may crow not, fearing 

To jostle his frozen comb. 

But ho, we will sing by ye hearthstone, 
Where ye yule-fire crackles bright, 

A song of cheer for ye winter drear, 
And ye hearts warm-housed to-night. 

And what if ye chill December 

Shall etch on ye window pane. 
Miniature mountains and glaciers, 

And gulphs of his bleak domain ? 

And ye stars in ye skies seem twinkling 

In icicles of light. 
And ye edge of ye wind cuts keener 

Than ever ye sword-edge might? 

And ye footstep crunch in ye court-way, 
And ye trough and ye cask go ping, 

And ye china crack in ye pantry, 
And ye cricket cease to sing? 

Why, ho for ye twigs of holly. 

And ho for ye sparkling wine, 
And ho for ye chimes of Christmas times. 

In this jovial song of mine? 



And then, as though in a spasm of glee, 

The pencil wriggled and writhed about, 
And drew strange figures, and smilingly 

Wrinkled their faces, and puffed them out; 
And one, the form of a gray old man, 

Caught at his long, thin beard and hair, 
Blowing the way that his pathway ran, 

And sang to the storm this mystic air: 

The 0iid Ye^i^ 3pe^K3. 

I am old, and my figure is shrunken 
And palsied and weary and weak, 









And I totter and reel as one drunken 

Whose footsteps know not what they seok. 

And ray eyes, all so hollow and sunken, 
Are rained full of tears as I speak. 

'Twas a brief year ago, 1 remember — 

I am sure but a brief year ago — 
That I stood on the grave of December, 

Where never a lily may blow; 
And the heart of me burnt like an ember 

In smoldering ashes of snow. 

And the world — ah! the world it seemed waiting 

To welcome me heir of it all. 
With a thousand sweet voices relating 

The legends of love, where the tall, 
Stately evergreen's boughs were vibrating, 

And holly-wreaths hung on the wall. 

And I heard, as one might who is dreaming 

Of melody, song upon song; 
And I smiled back in eyes that were- beaming 

With rapture; and all the night long, 
Low ripples of laughter came streaming 

From hearts that knew never a wrong. 

The clangor of bells was around me, 
The ringing applause of the throng 

That had lifted a shout as they found me, 
And raised me, and bore me along, 

And with garlands of roses had bound me, 
And crowned me with roses of song. 



I am old, now, though still I remember 
My youth of a brief year ago; — 

But again on the brink of December, 
Where never a lilv may blow, 

I thank God there still burns an ember 
Of faith in the ashes of snow ! 



80 closed the song: and the pencil and 
Its strange gyrations ceased and fell, 

And the poet, waking, found his hand 
Folded over the word ' Farewell." 







one that survived. On this copy he made 
several lead pencil corrections (most of his 
letters to her were written in lead pencil), 
chiefly in punctuation, though in one place 
he corrected what seems to have been a 
compositor^s blunder in making the text 
read ^Hhings of holly" instead of ^Hwigs of 
holly." Mrs. Brunn {nee Kahle) states 
that she distinctly remembers receiving this 
leaflet from Riley, and that although a great 
many other poems in the form of newspaper 
and magazine clippings were destroyed 
because she did not at that time * 'consider 
them worth saving," she placed this one 
among his letters because she particularly 
fancied it; — though she perhaps little 
dreamed what a precious item it was des- 
tined to become. 

The ending of the correspondence gives 
rise to various deductions and conjectures, 
and it has therefore been deemed advisable 
to print the letters practically free from 
editorial comment. In this way each reader 
may enjoy the privilege of reading them 
just as Riley wrote them, and be free 
to draw such inferences as the letters, 
[17] 



either singly or collectively, may seem to 
warrant. 

Mrs. Brunn says that after she had cor- 
responded with Riley for about two years 
he made her several visits at New Brighton, 
and that when she received the last letter 
of the series she had been lately married, 
therefore she did not answer it, as it seemed 
improper to continue a correspondence with 
an unmarried man. 

In a sworn statement which accompanies 
the letters, their former owner declares that 
they have been in her possession ever since 
she received them; that none of them have 
ever been published, and that not more than 
ten persons — mostly her family and close 
friends — have ever read the originals. 
The Bibliophile Society was indeed fortu- 
nate in acquiring possession of this treasure- 
trove, which was accomplished through the 
kind mediation of one of our members, Mr. 
John Needels Chester, of Pittsburgh, who 
procured them for us direct from their 
owner. 

H. H. H. 



118 



LOVE LETTERS OF THE BACHELOR 
POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



LOVE LETTERS OF THE BACHELOR 
POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



Greenfield, Ind., 
January 20, 1879. 

"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness 
I implore!"* 

L. D. Kahle: — 

A few days since, I received by mail a 
graceful little poem in MS., addressed "To 
a Poet," and bearing the signature "L. D. 
Kahle, New Brighton, Penn." 

As it came without letter or explanation, 
and as the name given is wholly unknown 
to me, I am at some loss to account for it; 
and I address you in the hope that "L. D. 
Kahle" is a reality, and will further favor 
me as intimated. 

Of the poem, I take the liberty of saying 
that I like it, and think some touches it 

♦Riley quotes this appropriate line from the fourth stanza of 
Poe's "Raven," where the speaker addressed himself to an 
unknown visitor who came "tapping at his chamber door." 

119] 



contains are simply exquisite. In style and 
finish it is new to me, and I must frankly 
add that there is a something in it makes 
me like its unknown author; and should 
this reach that person it will require no 
unusual tension of that fancy to discover 
here enclosed the warmest pressure of my 
hand. 

Very truly yours, 

J. W. Riley 



Greenfield, Ind., 
January 29, 1879. 
Miss L. D. Kahle — 
Dear friend: — 
Your letter comes to me like "AThjmge 
of Wytchencref ," — strange — mystical — 
mesmeric. I think we have known each 
other all our lives and never met till now, 
for even as you wrote, **I am an artist," 

"With inward vision my outward sight grew 
dim, 

I knew the rhjrthmic secret of the spheres, 
I caught the cadence, and a noble hymn 

Swam swan-like in upon the gliding years." 

[20 1 









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I was once stark, staring mad to be an 
artist, but unlike yourself, I never realized 
the sweet fruition of my dreams. 

"My crayon cupids, reddening into shape. 
Betrayed my talents to design and— scrape" 

— nothing more. So I leant my easel in 
the corner like a pair of tongues [tongs?] 
and gave my pictures to the poor — deter- 
mined that henceforward, like little Tom 
Tucker, I would sing for my "supper" — 
though at times I sadly fear that in running 
away from the thunder, I have run into the 
lightning, for with good Chispa, I am left 
to exclaim, — "Alas and alack-a-day! Poor 
was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither 
win nor lose. Thus I wag through the 
world, half the time on foot, and the other 
half walking!" 

As Miss Broughton would say, why did 
not you enclose in your letter a sketch of 
some bit of life or fancy? And may I ask, 
what is your peculiar trend in art? The 
fanciful, I would guess. If so, IVe a poem 
you must illustrate. It will make both our 
fortunes. It's too wildly extravagant, as it 
[211 



is, for the pokey old public to comprehend. 
You would understand it, and could make 
the world, — but will you? I am quite 
serious, and it's a glorious theme for an 
artist. It is filled with most uncanny 
sprites and eldritch things — unheard-of 
wonders in undreamed-of lands, where 
musical perfumes and odorous melodies 
haunt all the winds, and blur the eyes of 
Night with drowsiness that never sleeps, 
and dreams that never end.* Your pardon, 
but I do so like to talk about the "Gems of 
purest ray serene" that drip like dew-drops 
from my pen inspired! ! ! ! ! 

Yet with all this air of nonchalance, let 
me be frank and say that I am quite uneasy, 
wondering as I write if you will really smile 

*Mr. Charles W. Famham, of St. Paul, Miim., has very 
kindly furnished the following note: "Riley undoubtedly 
refers here to a long poem which ordinarily occupies a volume 
by itself, and which is called 'The Flying Islands of the Night.' 
It contains much verse that is very musical and fanciful, some 
that is deliberately nonsensical. My own experience with it 
is, that you must take it in bits — not attempt to read the 
whole thing at a sitting or consecutively — though I may not 
do justice to it in this attitude. I had some conversation 
with Mr. Eiley about it and he was pleased that I compli- 
mented certain parts of it; or, as he said, that I even noticed 
it at all, because 'most everybody else ignores it. It seems 
to be too extravagant and fanciful, and to have too much 
nonsense in it for any number of people to care anything about 
it.' " 

[22 1 



where I would have you, and fearing that 
you may not find beneath it all the nobler 
motive that inspires it. Be lenient in your 
judgment of me — if indeed you give the 
matter any thought. The future shall re- 
store the trust untarnished as pure gold. 

Although you have called yourself "a 
romantic girl," believe me, I do not address 
you as such. That avowal coming as it 
does, I understand; and to assure you how 
•wholly I do understand it and appreciate it 
at real value, I tell you truly that I don't 
believe it. Romantic things are good in 
Art and Poetry, but a Woman's heart is 
worth them all, — and such a heart as that 
is yours, I am sure. 

Your good words spoken of my poetry 
have encouraged me to ask if I may send 
you something in prose. It will more than 
delight me if you will, for then I may find 
newer courage to ask for other specimens of 
your writings, as well as the sketchesy which 
I can assure you will be quite as highly 
appreciated. In return for them I hereby 
agree to talk Holbein, Durer, Hogarth, 
Rembrandt, Chiaro ScurOy etc., &c, the full 

[23 1 



"perspective" of my "fore-shortened" capa- 
bilities, "picking out" the same with such 
"subtle touches" of "light and shade" as 
this "magic wand" of Faber's can evoke. 

Earnestly hoping to hear from you soon, 
and trusting you will indulge the hectic 
gaiety of my poor letter, I am, with all good 
wishes. 

Your sincere friend, 

J. W. Riley 

P. S. — I have just received a letter that 
reminds me of a duty I yet owe you. This 
will require another page or two. Will you 
bear with me? This unhappy sequel may 
pain you, though not more than it will me 
as I give it utterance. 

Your Uttle poem so pleased me I showed 
it to a jotunalistic friend while at Indian- 
apolis the other day ; and influenced — not 
by vanity I assure you — but by some 
indefinable impulse, I allowed him to retain 
it for pubUcation, modestly suggesting a 
change of title for our mutual sakes. And 
then in ignorance most blissful I awaited 
the denoument that was to Uterally crush 

124 1 



me, and be the means perhaps of wrenching 
me from the grasp of your regard for all 
time. 

The day of doom arrived, and in the 
coming state of frenzy now about to fall 
upon you, I leave you to imagine my per- 
turbed and startled attitude to find the poem 
published with the glaring caption, — 

MY PALACE OF PEARL AND FIRE 
To J. W. Riley 

with your name and address in full blazoned 
at the bottom.* 

Now spare me if you can. I deserve to 
hang, however much I prefer a life-sentence 
in the close imprisonment of your regard. 

*Mrs. Brunn states that she first met Riley — when she was 
a girl of seventeen — at a literary society meeting in Spring- 
field, Ohio, where he read some of his poems. She was only 
one of many to whom he was introduced in a perfunctory 
manner, and he did not remember her. She greatly admired 
him as a poet and an interpreter of poetry and after returning 
to her home in Pennsylvania she sent him a poem that she 
copied from a newspaper. The fact that she neglected to use 
quotation marks led him to suppose that she was the author 
of the verses. She says that the poem was written by Emma 
Alice Brown, "who lived and wrote in the early 50's." Mrs. 
Brunn can recall only the last stanza, which runs, — 

Come up to my palace among the hills. 

For a stately house is mine — 

O' come, my Poet, and drink with me 

The Blood of Immortal Wine. 

[25 1 



In reality, I am not wholly blamable. I 
admit my disloyalty to the trust you so 
graciously reposed in me, but for the luck- 
less manner in which the poem was pre- 
sented to the public the editor deserves our 
mutual ire. And I wrote him a letter of 
indignation, demanding in the name of all 
things sacred what he meant by such a 
liberty, to which he mockingly responded, 
that "The readers of The Herald would 
take more interest in it if they knew it was 
intended for anybody in particular, you 
know." 

Forgive me, I pray you in all contrition 
and sincerity. I believe you'd really pity 
me if you could look upon me as I sheepishly 
acknowledge all this. It's late at night, 
and I am all alone, and there's a mirror just 
across the room, but I wouldn't look into it, 
as I now feel, for a genuine 18-carat * 'Palace 
of Pearl and Fire" as big as your Exposition 
Building. 

The only recompense in my power to 

offer you is a poem in response, which — 

if it will in any way allay your vengeful 

feelings toward me — you may pubUsh in 

[261 



all its inferior merit, that it may rise up 
before the world and shake its gory locks 
at me and say I did it. — 

MINE* 

AN EXTRAVAGANZA 

"Mme she iSj — of the whole world mine!** 

I knew you long and long before 
God sprinkled stars upon the floor 
Of Heaven, and swept this soul of mine 
So far beyond the reach of thine. 
Ere day was bom I saw your face 
* Hid in some starry hiding-place 

Where our old moon was kneeling while 
You lit its features with your smile. 
I knew you while the earth was yet 
A baby — ere the helpless thing 
Could cry, or crawl, or anything; 
Nor ever will my soul forget 
How drowsy Time, low murmuring 
A lullaby above it, kept 
A-nodding till he dozed, and slept, 
And knew it not, till wakening. 
The Morning Stars began to sing. 
I knew you even as the hands 
Of angels set your sculptured form 
Upon a pedestal of storm. 
And lowered you to earth with strands 
Of twisted lightning. And I heard 



*We are unable to find that the first thirty-nine lines of 
this poem have ever been printed. — Ed. 

127 1 



Your voice ere you could speak a word 

Of any but the Angel-tongue. — 

I listened and I heard you say, — 

* 'Though Heaven sows otir souls among 

The worlds a miUion miles away 

Each from the other, they will lean 

Their tendrils nearer, day by day, 

Till all the lands that intervene 

Shall dwindle slowly, and the space 

Shall see them vine-like interlace 

Caressingly, and climb and twine 

Up treUises of summer-shine. 

And burst above in bloom divine!" 

And even as you spake, a stream 

Of some strange rapture over-ran 

My laughing Ups, and thus began 

The imknown song that men call * 'Dream." 

Because her eyes were far too deep 
And holy for a laugh to leap 
Across the brink where sorrow tried 
To drown within the amber tide, — 
Because the looks whose ripple kissed 
The trembling Uds through tender mist 
Were glamoured with a radiant gleam — 
Because of this I called her "Dream." 

Because the roses growing wild 
About her features when she smiled 
Were ever dewed with tears that fell 
With tenderness no tongue could tell, — 
Because her lips might spill a kiss. 
That dripping in a world like this 

[28 1 



Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream 
To sweetness — so I called her "Dream." 

Because I could not understand 

The magic touches of a hand 

That seemed, beneath her strange control, 

To smoothe the plumage of the soul, 

And calm it, till with folded wings 

It half forgot its fiutterings, 

And nestled in her warm esteem 

And trilled a song, and called her * 'Dream." 

Because I saw her in a sleep 
As desolate, and dark, and deep, 
And fleeting as the empty night 
That brings a vision of delight 
To some poor convict as he lies 
In slumber ere the day he dies — 
Because she vanished like a gleam 
Of Heaven do I call her "Dream." 

J. W. Riley 

Pardon paper and pencil. My writing is 
bad enough at best, but with a pen, most 
wretchedly atrocious. 

Greenfield, Ind., 
February 21, 1879. 
Miss L. D. Kahle — 

Dear friend : — ^C 

You were good enough to honor me some 
weeks ago with a communication that elated 

[29 1 



me to that degree of exuberant delight, I 
responded, forgetful of the fact that your 
letter contained nothing to warrant such a 
liberty on my part. I did more ; I filled page 
after page with the lightest pleasantries — 
as I then thought, but now think — hearing 
nothing from you in return — have very 
probably been received by you with any- 
thing but that pleasure and kindly welcome 
I had dared to anticipate for them. Although 
guiltless of any motive but to give you 
pleasure, I can but find in my own thought- 
lessness full cause for your being afifronted 
at what has doubtless seemed to you pure 
impudence. Used as I am to all manner 
of rebuffs, in public and in private, I confess 
I have had nothing to so deeply pain me as 
the consideration that you have (naturally 
enough, perhaps) misinterpreted my real 
character in thinking me either frivolous, 
sentimental, or anything beneath the dignity 
of true manliness, or at least that aspiration. 
And yet I feel that my position with you now 
is such that I can offer nothing, either by way 
of extenuation or explanation, but that which 
woiild simply be to you further annoyance. 

[30] 



Mentally reviewing my former letters to 
find, if possible, wherein I could have un- 
designedly offended, I recall that portion 
relating to the publication of your poem, and 
my confession of the chagrin I felt upon 
seeing it in print. Possibly you may have 
misunderstood me there. The cause of my 
chagrin was to see it thus publicly appear 
addressed to me, without your consent, and 
the awkward and unjust position in which it 
might place us both. And with good cause, 
therefore, did I deplore this unfortunate 
fact, — for the following week, in the same 
paper, appeared a rythmical screed ad- 
dressed to you by a literary Thugg of some 
local reputation, in which you were advised 
of the utter uselessness of inviting me to 
your ' 'Palace of Pearl and Fire," since my 
utter selfishness in the pursuit of fame 
wouldn't permit me for an instant to bestow 
my attentions in any direction that might 
be of pleasure to a fellow-pilgrim, etc., etc. 
Nor was this all; the week following, ap- 
peared another screed from an evident 
admirer of mine, in which the "Thugg" is 
informed that **When^oe^5 are asked to tip 
[311 



the flask of the blood of immortal wine, to 
them alone was the privilege known to 
accept or to decline" — or something like 
that — anyway, intimating that the "Thugg" 
was nothing but a 'Verse-carpenter," treas- 
uring a malice toward "our poet" (that's me 

— O fame, where is thy sting?) , for having 
publicly unveiled some of his prolific plagiar- 
ies, etc., etc., — and so the war goes on, 
and on — for I feel that the end is not yet 

— **and the biirden laid upon me seems 
greater than I can bear." 

As to the unfortunate cause of all this, I 
desire to say most truthfully that your poem 
made me very proud — I was proud of it, 
and am proud of it, and shall continue to be 
proud of it till you yourself object, and even 
in that instance I shall bury it away in some 
dark recess of my heart, and grope down 
there and like it all alone by myself. 

I write this in the hope that you may 
believe me wholly sincere. If I have 
offended you in any way, may I hope for 
your forgiveness? I don't know why I so 
desire your good opinion, but I do desire it, 

— whether worthy of it or not, I cannot say; 

[32] 



however that may be, I would be delighted 
to know you cared enough to inquire, for in 
that instance I could then offer references 
which might be received by you with far 
more interest than any words of mine, — 
for I recognize the fact that you know noth- 
ing of my history, my character, social posi- 
tion and all that, — perhaps don't care to, 
yet I believe it a duty that I owe both to you 
and to myself at this juncture, to assure you 
of the fact that I am a yoxmg man and un- 
married. I write sentimental verses occa- 
sionally, simply because I don't believe in 
love, and am anxious to convince myself of 
my error, possibly — I don't know why else. 
I have many friends, but more enemies, 
and can scarcely tell which I most enjoy, 
for I really enjoy being hated by some 
people. I am cynical in a marked degree, 
and disagreeable at times, I most frankly 
admit. Socially, I move in the best circles, 
— not, perhaps, because I was "to the 
manor born," but because — because — well, 
I recite dialectic poems acceptably, sing 
comic songs and make ftmny faces, all 
of which seems to please everybody but 

133 1 



myself, for when I seem the happiest is when 
I feel most like crying — though there are 
times I could take the whole world in my 
arms, and love it as I would a great, fat, 
laughing baby with a bunch of jingling keys. 
Trusting you will recognize the truthful- 
ness and earnestness of all that I have said, 
and hoping for such a response as I can but 
feel is due me in the very peculiar and un- 
comfortable position from which you alone 
can extricate me, I am. 

Very respectfully yours, 

J. W. Riley 

P. S. — This postscript will be a much 
happier one for me to write than my first, 
for I have just received your letter of date 
15th, in which, as the old romance winds up, 
— *'all has been explained." 

I am delighted beyond all words to find 
evidence of the fact that I have not been 
misinterpreted, and I thank you from the 
bottom of my heart for the frankness and 
confidence in which you have spoken. I 
shall certainly think none the less of you 

[34 1 



because you really can't write poetry, while 
you write such truths. — As you intimate, 
it must, at such a time, have required 
extraordinary courage and magnanimity. To 
tell the fact about it, I believe I admire you 
more for this avowal than had you written 
in its stead the most majestic sonnet. 

Though my former explanation, etc., will 
be now of little value, I send it, hoping you 
will find in it, scattered here and there, 
scraps of my better-self, and because I am 
about leaving home for some business en- 
gagements and have much hard work before 
me. Yet I can most truthfully assure you, 
I will go with a much lighter heart, having 
heard from you so pleasurably. 

Have you the faculty — though of course 
you have — of seeing even what is but 
vaguely described to you? I have, and in 
consequence I see you and your little old 
father living away out there all alone by 
yourselves like the Mr. Twomeleys (is that 
the name?) and his father in Great Expecta- 
tionSf and living just as happily. It is 
monotonous, of course; yet you are brave, 
I guess, and anchored in that sweet belief 

[35 1 



that some kind power has us in keeping — 

ever ripening on and on to some glad end. 

Shall I tell you how it seems to me you 

are? — or rather how I like to fancy it? 

Well, you're the little girl I read of in a poem 

the other day; she was alone — so all alone, 

the world grew as a blank to her ; for, in a 

dream, she dwelt among loved unlovely 

things, and yet "She dared not stay — she 

dared not go," tmtil at last '^beneath her 

feet a satin floor of white and blush and 

crimson roses sprung — and on this bridge 

of bloom she ran and sung, — and so came 

unto the South — 

And there she sleeps within a folded rose. 
Dreaming there is a power rocking the stem 
That sees all helpless souls and mothers 
them.'' 

And that's the way I shall picture you in 

preference to thinking of bleak hillsides, and 

a gaimt old house, perched all alone there, 

with great staring windows, glaring ever 

and in vain for something animate, forgetful 

even of the sad-eyed girl that sits within 

bent ever over her needlework, and — 

^* Shaping from her bitter thought 
Heartsease and forgetmenot." 

[36] 



O, you should see what I endure! When 
at home (my home is like yours, as I guess, 
in one respect, — the mother isn't there) — 
when at home I live mechanically, much 
like the house-plants — not so obtrusive 
perhaps, but quite as silent. I never speak, 
only to ask for more sugar for my coffee, or 
to say, *'I'm too busy to waste time at the 
wood-pile — I'll send a boy" (for I've a 
step-mother^ by the way, whose chief de- 
light is in rasping matter-o'-fact ideas over 
my aesthetic sensibilities) . * * What is home 
without a (step) Mother!" Give it up. So 
I stay here in my down-town room curled 
up like a wooley-worm, and when at work, 
quite happy in spite of Fate, Misfortune, 
etc., etc. 

My time is most delightfully diversified 
however, by occasional calls from different 
parts of the state to lecture, and since I've 
made this confession, I must admit that I've 
as strong an ambition in that peculiar field 
as in literature. Glad, too, to be able to say 
that I'm succeeding there beyond even my 
vainest expectations — but I'm running on 
beyond the limits of my time, or your 
[371 



interest, I am sure. You will write me, — 
will you? — at your very earliest conveni- 
ence. I like your letters, and shall await 
the next with more impatience than the last 
even, if such a thing could be possible. 

I earnestly hope the acquaintance begim 
imder such peculiar and harassing circum- 
stances will eventuate, after all, as happily 
as I desire, for in that instance the world 
will have in us the noblest artist, and the 
gladdest poet that ever twanged a string. 

Very truly yours, 

J. W. Riley 

Greenfield, Ind., 

March 15, 1879. 
Dear friend : — 

Yes, I meant "Wemmick"* and "The 
Aged," and I'm glad to get your good letter 
— for I've been from home for a week or 
two, and am tired — tired — tired ; and 
your letter is the one oasis of that pilgrim- 
age. Your picture of home is not at all 
unlovely — I like it, and I envy your great 

♦Instead of "Mr. Twomeleys" in Great Expectations. See 
postscript to letter of February 21st. 

138 1 



depth of tranquility and rest. It's like a 
prayer — hushed, holy and so full of gra- 
cious peace I feel like kneeling as I read. 

Your letters do me good- — they are so 
different from my flighty **Crinkum-crank- 
ums" — they seem like— like a deserved 
yet unintentional rebuke, and so I welcome 
them most warmly. 

I have a fear, however, that will haunt me, 
i.e., that I am simply an intrusion on your 
better time. Forgive me if I am, for know- 
ingly I would not vex you, and am '*more 
glad than words can say" that you have 
pardoned me for so unwittingly occasioning 
you the ''sleepless hours" you speak of over 
the publication of the lines "To a Poet" — 
which, by the way, is still of interest to me, 
and in your next will you tell me, please, the 
real author? 

All comment regarding it has died away, 
and there will be no further comment, rest 
assured. 

I take the liberty of sending you by this 
mail an old poem of mine that was the occa- 
sion of more worry to me than ever could 
have been your "Palace of Pearl and Fire." 

139 1 



Perhaps you may have heard something of 
it, yet fearful you have not, and desiring 
that you may fully understand it, I will 
briefly outline its history. 

About two years ago, in conversation with 
a friend, I ventured the assertion that 
poetry, to be popular, didn't require positive 
worth ; if it were the production of an author 
known to fame, that of itself was sufficient 
to insure its success. My friend took the 
opposite ground and argued so positively 
against my theory, that I determined to con- 
vince [him] of his error if in any way pos- 
sible; and beating about for a means of 
proof, I hit upon the idea of vaguely imitat- 
ing some dead author, and then fabricating 
a story to correspond with the supposed dis- 
covery of "his" poem, lay them both before 
the public. This project I perfected and 
carried out, selecting Poe* as the helpless 
victim of my heinous design. The poem, 
**Leonainie" was the result, and it is not 
vanity in me to say that the ruse worked so 
successfully scarcely a journal within the 



*By a singular coincidence, Poe died on the same day 
that Riley was bom. 

[40] 



boundaries of the United States failed to 
reproduce it. Among the more notable, 
William Cullen Bryant's '^Saturday Post," 
while Poe's latest, and, I guess, best, biog- 
rapher, Wm. F. Gill, of Boston, wrote for 
the *'orig." MS. copy which we (the editor 
who gave it first to the public, and myself) 
claimed was in our possession. — This lat- 
ter fact occasioning the expose of our fraud, 
for it had grown serious, you see, and we 
were in a manner forced to come to the sur- 
face, or a-la "Truthful James," "rise and 
explain." This we did, but as the grand 
majority had bitten at the tempting literary 
morsel of deceit, the irate press "went for 
us then and thar," and for your humble serv- 
ant with an especial intensity of vitupera- 
tion and exhaustless abuse ; and it was some 
months before I dared cheep a line of poetry 
without being reviled beyond measure. I 
can smile over it now, but then it was really 
very, very serious. 

Well, this poem has been set to music 

(by some fiend evidently who desires to 

perpetuate that unholy fraud of mine) and 

I have just received a copy of it and send it, 

[411 



hoping, after all, it will prove a passing 
pleasm^e to you, dear friend. I regret to 
note, however, that one verse of the poem 
has been omitted in the musical arrange- 
ment, as it makes still more obscure the 
real meaning of the poem.* 

Trusting you will still continue to favor 

me, as your time and pleasure may allow, 

and hoping, too, that you will recognize the 

real interest I find in your good letters, I am, 

Truly and gratefully 

Your friend, 

J. W. Riley 

LEONAINIE 

Leonainie — Angels named her; 

And they took the Hght 
Of the laughing stars and framed her 
In a smile of white ; 
And they made her hair of gloomy 
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy 
Moonshine, and they brought her to me 
In the solemn night. 

In a solemn night of simmier. 
When my heart of gloom 

*The poem, including the missing stanza, is given on this 
and the next page. 

[42 1 



Blossomed up to greet the comer 
Like a rose in bloom ; 

All forebodings that distressed me 

I forgot as joy caressed me — 

(Lying joy! that caught and pressed me 

In the arms of doom!) 

Only spake the little lisper 

In the Angel-tongue ; 
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper, — 
"Songs are only sung 
Here below that they may grieve you, — 
Tales but told you to deceive you, — 
So must Leonainie leave you 
While her love is young." 

Then God smiled and it was morning. 

Matchless and supreme. 
Heaven's glory seemed adorning 
Earth with its esteem; 

Every heart but mine seemed gifted 
With the voice of prayer, and lifted 
Where my Leonainie drifted 
From me like a dream. 

Greenfield, Ind., 

April 11, 1879. 
Miss Kahle — 

Dear friend : — 
More than a month has flashed away 
since the receipt of your last letter. I would 
have written long ere this, but for the gentle 

143 1 



intimation that I need display no prompt- 
ness at all — which meant, I sadly, sadly 
fear, that my letters are of value the most 
nominal in your esteem — Ho! ho! But 
you shall not find me so easily eluded. I 
will bide my time. I will ''possess my soul 
in patience." I will hide me low adown 
among the dim, dark shadows of your life, 
and as you journey on, forgetful of all else 
but art and fame, I will leap up before you 
like some monstrously-distorted ''Jack-in- 
the-box," and I will chortle with uncanny 
glee, — "Ho! ho! Ail things come round 
to him who will but wait!" 

But we are good friends, "ain't us"? as 
Joe Gasgery would say. And your letters, 
drifting out of the imknown and eddying 
about me in this far-off land, come to me 
like truant whiffs of perfume from en- 
chanted vales. There ! how's that? — but 
I mean it — every word, and more, too — 
for the world I know and deal with is a 
wrangling, jangling, slip-shod old concern 
that rattles as it rolls along the road of Time, 
and the noise of it sinks low and dies away, 
and I am soothed and thankful when your 

[44 1 



letters come. You are very good to me, 
and you must know that I appreciate and 
like you better every woman's-word you 
write. 

And you're at work again. Is there any- 
thing better than work? I have never found 
[it]. Sometimes I lose the way of it, and 
grow idle — then morose and sullen, dis- 
agreeable — and at last most wretchedly 
unhappy. I am very busy now, and very 
happy. I am always happy when at work, 
^and never wholly so even when necessarily 
idle — no, not even when I dance, laugh, 
sing or anything. — *'For fear ye die to- 
morrow let today pass by flower-crowned 
and singing," is advice I never could accept, 
— for if I knew I would die tomorrow I 
would occupy the day preceding that very 
notable event in labor — not in laughs. 

I did mean *'Wemmick" in Great Ex- 
pectations, and your correction, together 
with the home scenes as they actually exist, 
I enjoyed beyond measure. You say you 
cannot write. I say you can; and I know; 
for IVe been an editor — think of that! 
And when you write again, you must tell me 
[45 1 



more and more of home, your father, your 
work, everythmg. 

And sometime I want you — for my sake, 
since you declare yourself my friend — to 
write a poem. You can, and you must. I 
shall accept no excuse. 

Just now I'm a raving lunatic on the son- 
net topic. Here is one of Christina Ros- 
setti's. To use her own chaste words, ''And 
very sweet it is : — " 

AFTER DEATH* 

"The curtains were half drawn, the floor was 
swept 

And strewn with rushes ; rosemary and may 

Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, 
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. 
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept 

And could not hear him ; but I heard him say 

*'Poor child! poor child!" and as he turned 
away 
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. 

He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold 
That hid my face, or take my hand in his. 

Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head. 

He did not love me living ; but once dead 
He pitied me, and very sweet it is 

To know he still is warm though I am cold." 

♦This sonnet and the one following appear in the body of 
the letter, in Riley's handwriting. 

146] 






^ x. 



-i.y -svowi / 

ynJ 



^^-^'^ 






And here's one by your modest friend — 
not by any means so excellent as the one 
just quoted, but he wrote it, and he wants 
you to read it. 

JUNE 

queenly month of indolent repose! 

I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume, 
As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom 

1 nestle like a drowsy child, and doze 
The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws 

The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom. 

And weaves a damask-work of gleam and 
gloom 
Before thy listless feet; The lily blows 
A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade, 

And, wheeling into ranks with plume and 
spear. 
Thy harvest-armies gather on parade ; 

While faint and far away, yet pure and clear, 
A voice calls out of alien lands of shade, — 

"All hail the peerless goddess of the year!" 

I will also enclose with this a recent sketch 
in prose.* Nothing ambitious — nothing 
vigorous. You would term it — and I 

* "The prose mentioned in the next to last paragraph of 
letter of April 11th, 1879, I did not consider of any conse- 
quence, for I do not recall it and it is not at this date in my 
possession, nor do I know of its whereabouts." — Signed 
statement by Elizabeth Brunn, nee Kahle. 

f471 



would be greatly pleased if you did — "A 
quiet bit of color" — nothing more. 

And now, when may I hope to hear from 
you again? Write me when you can — if 
at once, I shall be all the more delighted, 
but if not, I will conform my desire with 
your own good time, and remain as faith- 
fully yours as now. 

Truly your friend, 

J. W. Riley 



Greenfield, Ind., 
May 6, 1879. 
My dear friend : — 

First, I must tell you truthfully that it has 
not been through neglect that I have not 
written in answer to your last good letter 
sooner. (And your last letter is ^^ better, 
better, better than anything on earth" — 
only the quotation proper is ^^ sweeter ^ 
sweeter, sweeter^^ — but I'm afraid to say 
that, having never, but in fancy, seen your 
woman-face, or caught and wrung your two 
kind hands.) 

[48 1 



I need not enter into any detail as to 
reason of my silence, and yet I do want you 
to know that I have been worried, fretted, 
vexed, and 'Vooled" around the last few 
weeks most pitilessly. Business for one 
thing — what little business I have to em- 
ploy my mind — has been slowly slipping 
and sliding beyond my reach, though by an 
almost superhuman effort IVe enough left 
to fatten my ambition in that line — for if 
I might have my way I'd have nothing to do 
with matter-of-fact affairs in any way. 

You've heard of Job's Turkey, of course 
(wonder if it was a Thanksgiving Turkey!). 
Well, in a financial aspect, I am left about 
as poor as that — only I'm a very patient 
and contented fowl, and so long as I'm not 
too poor to * 'gobble" I shall count myself 
extremely opulent. At least I shall say so, 
and how are you to know, so far away, but 
that I'm just as happy as I profess to be ! 

The reference to your brother — his leav- 
ing you for the world — his return home, 
and then his death — told me that you had, 
and have, a brave, good heart, and made me 
like you even better than before. For even 

[49] 



now as I write, a brother — older than my- 
self — is lying very seriously ill. This is 
one of my present troubles. John is his 
name, mine's Jim. My life has been just 
what the name suggests; John's life has 
been only good. He always had his lessons 
at school, and was never whipped either 
by the teacher or father — while / — why, 
I went about with welts nmning over and 
aroimd me, like a rhinoceros' hide. O I 
was a calloused little wretch, both outward- 
ly and in, and was never so happy as when 
breaking rules. 

But John was good, and is good, and 
though you say you like bad boys best, you 
couldn't help loving John, for he wasn't the 
insipid good little boy of the Sunday-school 
books. Besides, you must like him, be- 
cause if it hadn't been for John I'd never 
have been fit to write one word to z/ou, or 
any one so good, nor would any one have 
cared to hear from one so low — so lost. 
And if John should die there would be no 
one left whose praise could be quite so much 
as his is to me. He praises every line that 
has a moral worth, and every sentiment that 
[50] 



speaks out for the poor. John was the first 
to believe in me, and if he lives I know I 
will be better every day. I am selfish — 
very selfish — but I would rather die here 
at these words than to know that he had 
left me. 

The world is such a great wide ache of 
emptiness without some one you know is 
wholly true, and though one writes and 
writes till all who read applaud, how much 
more lovable is he who teaches us *'how 
better 'tis to be the poem than write it 
down." I don't know anything of a here- 
after, but when I die I want to go to — John, 
if he goes first, and I pray he may not. 

I was glad to hear you say, **you didn't 
want to be let alone." I think / heard your 
voice in that sentence. You like me, don't 
you? It makes me very happy thinking so 
anyhow, and I do think so, and even if you'd 
say you didn't, I doubt if I'd believe you, so 
there, now — here's a quandary of some 
kind ! What's to be done? Tell you what : 
I'll steal in upon you as in fancy I see you 
reading this, and even as you said, "lay a 
gentle hand upon your shoulder," saying — 
fSil 



"forgive me!" Do you hear? and do you 
lift your eyes up to my own? and do you 
smile? — Then I am forgiven — and so I 
stand here by your side, tranced in some 
strange silence that lays a viewless finger* 
on my pencil now, and talks on in my stead. 

I do wonder if you would like me if you 
could know and see me as I am. I*d like 
you to, of course, but would be almost fear- 
ful of the test. But I'll tell you frankly 
what I will do, if you'll take an equal risk; 
I'll send you my — (I won't say **photo," 
as the **Wills" and ''Harries" do, please 
mark) picture — if — you'll — let me. (I 
try to say this very humbly, very bad-boy- 
ishly, yet after all I want you to know that 
I say it far more earnestly than any other 
way, and you will understand me rightly I 
am sure and answer in your next.) 

And how do you progress with your work? 
I can't say I am waiting patiently for that 
landscape you promised me so long ago; 
but I am waiting — waiting. Will it ever 
come, and when? 

*Riley afterwards incorporated this same thought in the 
fifth stanza of the New Year's Greeting poem, facsimile of 
which appears in the front of this volume. — Ed. 

152 1 



O yes! — I am quite well acquainted with 
the author of the little poem * 'Unwritten" 
which you sent me in your last. It is Mrs. 
D. M. Jordan, of Richmond, Ind. I have 
visited at her home two or three times. I 
see her quite often. She is an editor as well 
as a poet, and a most lovable woman. She 
is a woman of wonderful magnetism, and it 
is music to hear her talk. Is married, and 
has two grown children; one, a daughter, 
quite recently wedded to some lucky dog 
whose happiness I trust will follow him for- 
ever and forever! I want to tell you all 
about Mrs. Jordan, for she is my very best 
friend — but I haven't time, and perhaps 
you wouldn't care to listen anyhow, but I 
will quote something from a newspaper 
letter written years ago, when I first met 
her. It is here in my scrap book : — 

*'And now let me leave a good taste in 
your mouth by telling you of my visit to 
Mrs. Jordan, that charming child of Song 
whose melody ripples around the happy 
world. There's a woman everybody likes 
at first sight. She meets you with a glad 
face that only blossoms warmer as you know 
[53 1 



her better. She takes your hand and 
shakes it — no dainty affectation of cold 
finger-tips. 

*'She is what the English would call *a 
trifle stout' in stature; but her bearing is 
both graceful and majestic. She has a way 
of growing in height at certain utterances 
that makes her manner extremely fascinat- 
ing. Her eyes are capable of great expres- 
sion — particularly of the tenderer emo- 
tions. So marked is this, in fact, that at 
the reading of any tender verse her eyes will 
moisten, and her rich voice fail and falter. 
I had the rare good fortime to listen to her 
latest poem, which she laughingly called *a 
bit of jingle,' but if I might venture an 
opinion, I would call it a grand poem. 

"I met her daughter also — a bright little 
woman of eighteen, with all the mother's 
qualities but the poetry. She is quite hand- 
some, with bright eyes that flash an extra 
brilliance through a pair of fimny 'specs,* 
surmounting a nose *Tip-tilted like the petal 
of a flower.' " 

So much for my dear friend Mrs. J. That 
last clause was inserted for a purpose, which 

[54 1 



of course failed — for have I not told you 
that she's went and gone and got married 
to another fellow? and the sigh I breathe 
here would inflate a hot-air balloon. But 
there! forgive me again. 

When you write, tell me more about your- 
self. Do as I do, — talk of nothing but 
yourself. I seem to know you better from 
your last letter, but you're always saying or 
intimating that your ways and your capabili- 
ties and your efforts and all are sorto' 
secondary; and always putting yourself in 
the background, — and I'm going to take 
your part, and tell you that you shant talk 
that way any more, for I know you are bet- 
ter than you try to have me think, and am 
too true a friend to submit to such innuen- 
does without coming to your assistance as I 
now do in this way. 

When will you write? Write just as soon 
as you can, and next time I'll answer with 
more promptness — nothing shall prevent 
me. 

Yours very truly, 

J. W. Riley 

[55 1 



Greenfield, Ind., 
May 16, 1879. 
Miss Lizzie KaMe — 
Dear friend : — 
Some days ago I said I would send you 
my latest sketch.* I enclose it to you now; 
also — if you will pardon the vanity — 
notices of my recent debut as a reader in 
our capitol city, Indianapolis. The latter 
I ask you to kindly return — the former I 
trust you will like so well you will embalm 
it in your scrap book for the sake of 

Your true friend, 

J. W. Riley 

In the meantime, if your letter doesn't 
shortly arrive I'll be crazier than the sketch 
I send you indicates. 



*"The 'sketch' referred to in letter of May 16th, as being 
enclosed, was a prose sketch entitled The Tale of a Spider. 
It was not interesting and I considered it of no literary worth, 
so did not preserve it." — Signed statement by Elizabeth 
Brunn, nee Kahle. 

[56] 



Greenfield, Ind., i 

June 10, 1879. 
Miss Lizzie Kahle — 

Dear friend : — i 

I am not so prompt in my reply to your i 

last good letter as I could have been, and .] 

wanted to be ; but you will pardon the delay \ 

when I tell you the anxiety occasioned by I 

my brother's long and still dangerous ill- i 

ness, together with a complication of other 
trials, has kept me silent with an aching 
hope that some brighter time than this would 
dawn upon my needs and my desires. 

I think I must be a very disagreeable sort i 

o' wretch about now. There is a lull about , 

the house when I go home, and the old dog 
lying on the doorstep, with his nose leveled 
townward over his two paws, always leaps 
up when I reach the gate, and vanishes 

around the corner. He knows who's com- ; 

ing. — He's heard some one reading in the ! 

papers about something having "cast a j 

gloom over the entire community," and he i 

thinks it's me, I've no doubt. | 

I wonder if you are quite as lonesome as I 

I am. I think not — I hope not — I pray 

157 1 ! 



that you are not. I half wish that I were a 
dog that I might crawl away under the 
sleepers of some old deserted house, and 
howl — and howl. I can*t express my 
feelings with any degree of elegance — fine 
figure wouldn't fit 'em, and it's the veriest 
selfishness in me to prance 'em out in public 
anyhow. Guess I'll drive 'em back, and 
fling old Fate smile for smile. 

I was down to the city last week and went 
skippety-hop to the picture shop to get my 
picture taken, and when I got there I sat 
down in a chair, and looked sad and for- 
saken. There! that fact's embalmed for 
immortality — for it is a fact that in sitting 
for a picture the human face asstimes its 
saddest and most hopeless expression. As 
yet I haven't the result of my last venture, 
but you may prepare for the worst, for I 
know the smile I tried to wear will look 
positively bleak — and I'm not what the 
world would call handsome even at my best; 
and there never was but one girl ever told 
me so, and her face was a perfect constella- 
tion of freckles, to say nothing of the masta- 
donian proportions of her hands and feet. 
158 1 



You see I can't write pleasantly — there 
is nothing healthful in my mental composi- 
tion and I am powerless to affect a lightness 
and gaiety which I do not feel. You will 
forgive me. You are good, and you will 
understand. I want you to write me a 
better letter than I deserve for this nothing- 
ness. 

Sometimes I write dialectic poems and 
publish them anonymously or under noms 
de plume, I will send you two or three,* 
but will have to copy some. They at least 
will be more pleasure to you than the poor 
juiceless lines I have written here. 

Truly your friend, 

J. W. Riley 

OLD-FASHIONED ROSES 

They aint no style about 'em, 

And they're sorto pale and faded, 
Yit the doorway here without 'em 

*Only one of these copies of his "dialectic poems" seems 
to have survived in the correspondence, — the one entitled 
"Old Fashioned Roses." It is printed herein, followed by 
the author's Note, written on the back of the sheet on 
which he copied it in his own handwriting. The text differs 
slightly from the printed versions. 

[59 1 



Would be lonesomer and shaded 
With a good-'eal blacker shadder 

Than the momin'-glories makes, 
And the sunshine would look sadder 

For their good old-fashion' sakes. 

I like *em 'cause they kindo 

Sorto make a feller like 'em, — 
And I'll tell you, when I find a 

Bunch out whur the sun can strike 'em, 
It alius sets me thinldn' 

O' the ones that used to grow 
And peek in thru the chinkin' 
O' the cabin, don't you know. 

And then I think o' Mother, 

And how she used to love 'em 
When they wasn't any other, 

'Less she foimd 'em up above 'em, — 
And her eyes, afore she shut 'em, 

Whispered with a smile and said 
We must pick a bunch and put 'em 
In her hands when she was dead. 

But as I was a-sayin', — 

They aint no style about 'em — 
Very gaudy or displayin' — 
Yit I wouldn't be without 'em, 
'Cause I'm happier in these posies 

And the hollyhawks and sich. 
Than the hmnin'-bird that noses 
In the roses o' the rich. 

J. W. Riley 

160] 



Note. — Not knowing, of course, that 
you are familiar with, or will appreciate, the 
Hoosier dialect, I would say, both in justice 
to my fellow-Hoosiers and myself, that the 
two poems within are very careful, and I 
think, accurate studies, not only of dialect 
but character as well, — for, to aptly and 
truthfully apply the idiom, — "We're as 
meller a hearted set o' folks as you ever laid 
eyes on!" 

J. W. R. 



Greenfield, Ind., 
July 13, 1879. 

My dear friend : — 

I suspect that by this time both your con- 
fidence in me, and your patience are almost 
exhausted. I will not worry you with long 
excuses for my long silence, but say simply 
I have been disappointed many ways, and 
so kept from many things I desired to do — 
foremost of which a letter to your own good 
self. I merely scrawl this page now — not 
as a letter, but as an assurance of my warm 
[61] 



remembrance of you. There's an old love- 
song from the Japanese, the quaint burthen 
of which is — 

**/ have forgotten to forget — " 

Well that is my sentiment, believe me. 

The main reason of my silence, however, 
has been that I couldn't enclose the picture 
when I did write — for it was simply hor- 
rible! ! — and I'm going into the city to- 
morrow to "try, try again." So I write this 
merely to assure you that I intend writing 
you in a week at farthest, and to ask you 
to forgive me for my apparent neglect of 
your last best of all letters. 

And O yes! — I mustn't forget to tell 
you that my dialectic poems, under the 
name of "Walker" are creating some com- 
ment through the press both East and West 
and I enclose a clipping, hoping for a con- 
gratulatory smile from you; also a poetical 
corner — a recent feature of the Indianap- 
olis Herald — which I am glad to say is 
proving most successful. They are odd 
jingles mainly, though occasionally I think 
a more than average stanza escapes my 

162 1 



careless pen. I am almost sure you will 
like * 'Mirage," for I thought of you every 

line as I wrote. i 

And now God bless you, and forgive me, i 

and I will soon send you the letter you 
deserve. 

Ever your true friend, 

J. W. Riley 

MIRAGE j 

I ,; 

An alien wind that blew and blew 

Over the fields where the ripe grain grew, i 

Sending ripples of shine and shade i 

That crept and crouched at her feet and played. 

The sea-like sununer washed the moss 

Till the sun-drenched lilies hung like floss, j 

Draping the throne of green and gold 
That lulled her there lUce a queen of old. 

n 

Was it the hum of a btunble bee. 

Or the long-hushed bugle eerily ' 

"Winding a call to the daring Prince ] 

Lost in the wood long ages since? — ' 

f 63 1 ' i 



A dim old wood, with palace rare 
Hidden away in its depths somewhere! 

Was it the Princess, tranced in sleep. 
Awaiting her lover's touch to leap 

Into the arms that bent above? — 

To thaw his heart with a breath of love — 

And cloy his lips, through her waking tears. 
With the dead-ripe kiss of a hundred years I 

m 

An alien wind that blew and blew, — 
I had blurred my eyes as the artists do, 

Coaxing life to a half-sketched face. 
Or dreaming bloom for a grassy place. 

The bee droned on in an imdertone. 
And a shadow-bird trailed all alone 

Across the wheat, while a liquid cry 
Dripped from above, as it went by. 

What to her was the far-off whirr 
Of the quail's quick wing or the chipmunk's 
chirr? — 

What to her was the shade that slid 
Over the hill where the reapers hid? — 

Or what the himter, with one foot raised, 
As he turned to go — yet, pausing, gazed? 

[641 






^<___ ^.^ «... (^^rrt., r.trCi t^'^, , ^c^'^u^u^^ '' 



— ^And here^s a laddie from the Highlands 
— if you like Scotch — butterscotch. — 

THE LITTLE TINY KICKSHAW* 

** — And any pretty little tiny kickshaws." 

— Shakespeare 

O the little tiny kickshaw that Mither sent to me! 

'Tis sweeter than the sugar-plum that reepens 
on the tree, 

Wi' dainty flaverin's o' spice, and musky rose- 
marie, 

The Uttle tiny kickshaw that Mither sent to me. 

'Tis lu[s]cious wi' the stalen tang o' fruits frae 

o'er the sea, 
And e'en its fragrance gars me laugh wi* 

langin' Hp and ee 
Till a' its frazen sheen o' white maim melten 

honey be, 
Sae weel I lo'e the kickshaw that Mither sent 

to me. 

O I lo'e the tiny kickshaw, and I smack my lips 

wi' glee, 
And mickle do I lo'e the taste o' sic a luxourie, 
But maist I lo'e the bonnie bans that could the 

giftie gie 
O' the little tiny kickshaw that Mither sent to me. 
J. W. Riley 

*This poem, which is printed exactly as the Poet wrote 
it to Miss Kahle, differs slightly, both in text and punctuation, 
from the printed versions. 

165] 



And O yes! — when I go in with a Lecttire 
Bureau next season — which I will — Fm 
going to struggle to get down your way. I 
shall never be content till you see me on 
*'my throne — the rostrum," — that's the 
way the big bill reads. I fill this blank up 
with a real laugh. 

Yours, 

J. W. R. 

Of course you'll forgive all this display of 
vanity — no, it isn't vanity — it's just 
'cause I'm glad, and want you to know it. 
But it is such fun to bewilder folks. My 
best friends don't know I am Walker, and 
you will notice comment from Mr. B. S. 
Parker — a leading poet of our State, and 
one of my closest friends — and only just 
see what he has written to the editor regard- 
ing "Walker," and observe, too, the clever- 
ness of the comment following. O, I just 
clap my hands! 

Don't bother about returning the scraps. 
I have bushels of 'em. You remember the 
little old myth of "Beauty and the Beast." 

166 1 



I came across a reminder of it yesterday, 
which I embellish and enclose. I want you 
to smile upon it. 

Kokomo, Ind., 
July 15, 1879. 
Once more dear friend : — 

My scrawl of yesterday I have carried till 
today, being so busied with a thousand 
things. I'm unexpectedly visiting my good 
friend here, the editor of the Tribune, He's 
going to put me at work, too; so you see, 
like good Chispa, — '4n running away from 
the thunder I have run into the lightning;" 
but after all, the world is very good. 

You will pardon the apparent haste and 
untidiness of my last communication, I am 
sure, and believe me. 

As ever your friend, 

J. W. Riley 

Later, — I want to tell you all about that 
cunning little sketch you sent me. When 
I write I will, and I intend to write soon. 

J. W. R. 

Maybe I'll send you a sketch. Used to 
sketch a little. 

[67 1 



Greenfield, Ind., 
August 14, 1879. 
Miss Kahle — 

Dear friend : — 

I cannot blame you if you think me 
neglectful. It will appear so, though again 
and again must assure you that I am not. 
When I wrote you last I was anticipating a 
brief rest from my labors, but was driven 
back to work again with scarcely the interval 
of a good long breath. 

I am now regularly furnishing four papers 
with contributions, besides writing a part- 
nership book, and perfecting an original 
programme for readings the coming season. 
So you will see I am indeed overwhelmed, 
and I must throw in, too, by way of good 
measure, the fact that I'm in rather ill health. 
I don't like to acknowledge this, but I feel 
that I will be better for the confession. I 
am very nervous, and worry a great deal 
more than is good for me, and the doctor 
says if I don't give up night-work (my time 
of all times for work) I'll just naturally "go 
out" like a candle. Pleasant contempla- 
tion! — isn't it? But this winter will bring 
168 1 



me round all right again, I'm sure — when 
I get on the road, you know, entrancing the 
world at large with my rhythmic eloquence, 
and leaving delighted thousands bathed in 
tears — Ah, ha! what a picture for the sallow 
little giant as his pencil trips along the words. 
You'll think I have forgotten the picture, 
too, but I haven't. O but this blotchy old 
face of mine takes awful! It aint blotchy 
either, but it always takes that way - — so 
you'd think I was uglier than I really am — 
and that's bad enough. But will you wait 
just a little longer? Please see how I want 
you to have my picture, and how more I 
want yours, and if I don't very soon get a 
better one than this, why I'll send it along 
with directions how to look at the paradox 
^-for my mustache is not black (as the 
picture makes it) — my head bald ; my eyes 
brown, or my face solemn, haggard and long 
as an undertaker's. All this the picture 
makes me, and I won't submit to it. My 
hair is rather light in color, and I have a way 
of brushing it closely down and sleeking it 
so the camera of the artist just glances off, 
I guess. Then my mustache is — well what 

169 1 



I have always persisted in calling "amber- 
colored" — "hardly golden" — a trifle deep 
even for pinchbeck — but it aint red — nor 
it aint black, and you'll say so when you see 
me, and like me all the better for not being 
prejudiced with this paraphrase on my real 
appearance. 

In the meantime, I find that I am sadly 
missing your good letters, and I need them. 
They are more to me than I can tell you, 
and you must write to me now, now, now. 

Soon I will have more leisure to respond 
than now, but by the time another reaches 
me, I will take the time whether I have it 
or not, and I will write to you as I want to. 

I have got the little sketch you sent, pinned 
here above my desk, with a terra cotta 
Venus on either side, and stacks and stacks 
of poetry heaped high up to her baby feet. 

Please write to me at once. Tell me you 
forgive me for everything, 'cause I can't 
help it all and you must forgive me. 

I again afflict you with scraps — scraps, 
— scraps. As ever 

Your friend, 

J. W. Riley 

[70 1 



Greenfield, August 23, 1879. 

My dear friend : — 

Your letter is so kind — so very kind and 
good, that I must write at once to thank you 
for it and grab your two warm hands close 
in my own and wring them fervently. Only 
you mustn't be concerned about my health 
or welfare — anything ■— 'cause I don't de- 
serve such interest from anyone so good as 
you. I do smile, though, when you say, "I 
want to ask, like I do of children when they 
cry, what is the matter? Tell me." 

Surely if you feel like that, then indeed 
you comprehend me just as I am, — a little 
helpless child — who would thank God 
with all his boyish heart if you just could — 
now this minute — put your hands over my 
eyes and say, "Now you must sleep;" only 

— only — I want to be strong enough to bear 
my burden, and your dear words make me 
weak. You don't know — you can't know 

— what a weight it is, and how heavier it 
grows each weary step I take. 

Forgive me, but you mustn't be so good 
to me, because / want you to be happy — 
[711 



not like me, who cannot even lift my empty 
hands at times, and ask God's help. You 
make me want to call you "little girl." You 
make me want to come to you creeping on 
my face and hands, to hide away from all 
the world and rest — rest! But this is 
Fate's hand clutching mine, and dragging 
me from pleasant ways through tangled 
labyrinths and steep defiles, and over stony 
paths where no flowers bloom, and no bird 
ever sings, and no one (should I not thank 
God for that?) to — "tSzY down in the dark- 
ness and weep with me on the edge of the 
world — 50 love lies dead^ Yet, I wish 
that I might talk with you a little for / am 
good and you must know that always. You 
are like me in many things, and in one thing 
in particular, you are inclined to tire of it all 
(I mean this thing of living on and on — for 
— - what?) — and ever yearning for some 
indefinable good that is ever kept from you. 
Am I not right? Well, I do not know your 
strength, but I will pray that it, too, is like 
my own; that you can say with me, — *'It 
all means something ^ since God wills it, and 
may He give me strength and patience to 
f72l 



I>'..K. 



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abide." And it does mean something since 
God wills it, and He will give us strength and 
patience to abide. And I smile now as I 
fancy our two souls are kneeling here to- 
gether side by side, praying in one voice, 
and God will hear it. 

*Wou; another new moon is here." 

The poems you send are both good. The 
Moon-poem especially — only it is so pas- 
sionately hopeless. It is like the sound of 
my own voice, — or Yours — Ours! God 
bless us yet a little more than this! 

And you are not to cry now, 'cause I'm 
almost well, and will be quite when your 
next letter comes, — that will cure me. 
And I do promise you not to work quite so 
hard as I have been doing. And I have 
heard you call to me, and I have answered 
saying ■ — '*God bless you, little girl, you rest 
me so!" 

There, — 

J. W. R. 

Later, — Will you understand it all? Will 
you understand, I wonder, if I tell you that 
I fear that I am going to make you unhappy? 
173] 



Will you understand me when I tell you 
that should this premonition prove true, 
that your unhappiness would be my own? 
I fear you never will quite understand the 
strange, strange paradox I am. I hardly 
understand it all myself. At times, it is all 
black — black. You must not think too 
kindly of me. Not that I don't deserve 
esteem, perhaps, — but, rather, all the 
affection I can ofifer in return is as vain as 
it is wild and fervid. If I could take your 
hand and hold it as I say these words you 
would know how deeply truthful, sad and 
earnest I am in this belief. My life has 
been made up of disappointments and de- 
spairs. This is no morbid fancy, — it is 
fact. I have learned to bear it well, as I 
have learned to expect but little else. I 
ache, but I grope on — smiling in the dark. 
You are not strong as I am strong. Your 
tears would overflow the path and sweep 
you back. You must not know what I 
endure. God made you to be glad, so you 
must not lean too far out of the sunshine to 
help me. I am not wholly selfish, strug- 
gling down here in the gloom, but I am worn 
[74 1 



and O so tired — tired — tired, that I can 
but grasp your hand if proffered — only 
don't — don't! Just hail me from the brink 
with cheery words. That will be best for 
you — and as for me — why, I will be 
stronger surely, knowing I have dragged 
no bright hopes down with my poor drown- 
ing ones. 

My whole being goes out from me, and I 
am calling to you through the great distance 
that divides us. Do you hear? — God bless 
you, little girl, and keep you always glad as 
you are good. 

You must write to me at once. I dream 
now that your face is drooped a little, but I 
lift it with my hand, and it is bright and beau- 
tiful to me. So, set it heavenward and where 
the sunlight falls full on it as you move, 
and I will see its radiance flash back, and 
that will help me. And so God Mess us both. 
Want you, when you write, to tell me all 
about yourself — And do you have a hard 
time, and no rest, and no promise of it? 
And are you poor like me — and proud, 
though? Ah, so I thought. Well, be brave. 
That's all. You are not poor like the world; 
175 1 



thank God for that. I am so poor I cannot 
even keep the sister I love from work. Some 
tunes I smile though when she makes more 
money than I do, with all my preponderance 
of Genius — (ahem! !) — please laugh! 

Greenfield, Ind., 

September 1, 1879. 
My dear friend : — 

You will never know how bewilderingly 
glad and proud your gift has made me. You 
mentioned in your letter that you would 
send me "Two little pictures,'' though they 
did not get here till three days after — 
Saturday — and this is Monday. Posi- 
tively I don't know what to do or say. The 
surprise is so great — their worth is so much 
above even what I had fancied — and they 
are so everything to me that I am powerless 
to do anything but stretch my empty hands 
out toward you as I sometimes do toward 
Heaven when it is good to me. 

I fancy that this face of Beatrice is like 

your own, and so I smile and smile upon it, 

wishing it could speak and tell me just how 

tired it has grown of everything, that I might 

[76 1 



bend and touch it with my own, and say 
"Dear child, be rested for my sake." You 
must wait a long time patiently till I can 
think of something that will please you in 
return. I can't imagine now what it will be, 
but it must be something very rare and rich 
and curious and beautiful and dear in your 
eyes. So I must think and ponder studi- 
ously for ages yet. 

And how I like this little piece of charac- 
ter — Genre, do you call it? — something 
like that, I suspect — but / will call it 
homei/j and heartsome^ and most lovable, 
in its dim, earthy beauty, and matter-of-fact 
individuality. I am not critic enough to tell 
why the work is good, but I feel intuitively 
that as a real artistic performance it does 
possess the highest merit. I have many 
artist-friends at Indianapolis, and am with 
them quite often, and I think I absorb in 
some degree something of their knowledge 
and insight regarding such things. Any- 
way, I shall hold that this little work is not 
only a very truthful life-study, but in color, 
tone, and conscientious treatment in all 
technical details, it is masterly. 
[77 1 



I haven't swung them up yet. My little 
room here is so dismal now that I will be 
forced to remodel it throughout, and I'm too 
poor to paper the walls as I would like, or do 
anything but turn the carpet, wash the 
windows, and move my desk to some other 
comer. But I can smile yet. Don't forget 
that, and have waited so long already that 
the ''good time coming" can't be so very far 
away. 

I was expecting to go into the city today 
with my brother, who is still an invalid, but 
he feared the rain, and so will not go until 
tomorrow. Then I'm going to get you a 
tin-type of this face of mine anyhow. I'm 
growing very anxious for you to see just how 
I look now, 'cause I've concluded to sacri- 
fice the mustache in the interest of my char- 
acter readings, and once off it must remain 
so, 'cause it would argue to the dear public, 
— seeing me first with and then without 
beard, — that I had no stability of character 
and all that. So really it is a very serious 
change to contemplate. Besides, I've worn 
a mustache now for years and years ; in fact 
this is my first, as it must be my last. 
f7Sl 



I must hurry through. I have only time 
to clip and enclose a recent ''interview" 
with a special correspondent.* I shudder 
as I fold it up, feeling that in it I send you 
more of my real self than you have ever 
gathered through my letters, or perhaps 
have ever dreamed. I think a thousand 
things. Maybe you will be shocked — 
though I don't believe that ; maybe you will 
think *'It might have been worse," or may- 
be, — "He's better now^^ — and that's some 
comfort. No matter what you think, my 
dear, dear friend, I will be proud if you will 
recognize in it honesty above all subterfuge, 
and [endeavor?] to defy the censure of the 
Vere de Vere element, since after all, — 

** 'Tis only noble to be good." 

I don't know what your next letter will be. 
I am restful. I am waiting; I believe in 
you, and you have made me better. I think 
you are wholly good, and you have my 
fullest confidence. 



*Mrs. Brunn (nee Kahle) says that this "interview" was 
not preserved, and that she has no recollection of what it 
was, or what became of it. 

[79 1 



God bless you and keep you always glad ; 
and with all gratitude and warm esteem, 
believe me, 

Your true friend, 

J. W. Riley 

HOPE* 

Hope, bending o'er me one time, snowed the 
flakes 

Of her white touches on my folded sight. 
And whispered, half rebukingly, "What makes 

My little girl so sorrowful tonight?" 

scarce did I unclasp my lids, or lift 

Their tear-glued fringes, as with blind embrace 

1 caught within my arms the mother-gift. 
And with wild kisses dappled all her face. 

That was a baby-dream of long ago. 

My fate is fanged with frost, and tongued 
with flame : 
My woman-soul, chased naked through the 
snow, 
Stiunbles and staggers on without an aim. 

And yet, here in my agony, sometimes 
A faint voice reaches down from some far 
height, 
And whispers through a glamoring of rhymes, — 
"What makes my Uttle girl so sad to-night?" 

J. W. R. 

*This poem, in Riley's handwriting, appears on a long 
sheet, above the prose note that here follows it. 

[80 1 



September 18, 1879. 

Here is a little poem that wrote itself. I 
hardly know if I fully comprehend it, but 
something tells me you will like it, for all its 
strangeness, and I trust you will. 

Soon I will answer your last note and gal- 
lant letter that made me laugh and cry. 
You mustn't be so queer! I'm growing 
envious — or jealous, rather. I've been 
without a rival in that line for so long I can't 
be reconciled to any competition. I know 
the letter like a prayer, and I do breathe it 
quite as fervently. 

Don't think that I suspect you of duplicity 
in any way. I only thought the Elde Kael 
poem might be yours, sent to the Herald 
through a friend, perhaps. Am truly sorry, 
though, you don't live nearer. But never 
mind ! — for I will find you some day. Then 
I will tell you just how good you have been 
to me (for you don't know) , and just how I 
appreciate your every kindly word and wish. 
Only you mustn't go on thinking I am 
not strong and well, or ever likely to be 

[81] 



otherwise — 'cause I'm a positive athlete^ 
though I don't look so. 

Just completing the lecture. You should 
hear it. Good^ if it is mine ! 'Spect there's 
not a line of it but was untangled from 
thoughts of you — (slap him! slap him!). 
Anyway, I'm thinking of you now^ and shall 
work no more tonight. "God bless us 
every one!" The Cenci smiles and smiles. 
How strange is everything! Good night. 

Greenfield, Ind., 
October 10, 1879. 
Dear friend : — 

It has been ages since I last wrote you, 
but you will forgive me when I tell you that 
I've been preparing a special programme for 
a Benefit tendered me by the people of 
Indianapolis. It is such an undertaking for 
me — and I must succeed there, of all places 
in the world — that for weeks I have forced 
myself to neglect everything else. And I 
write now simply to enclose a long-promised 
tin-type^'' for it is not a likeness ^ as in spite 

*See left-hand picture on frontispiece in this volume ; also 
explanation at page 69 ante. 

f82l 



of all attempts my face refuses to be repro- 
duced in even "shadowy similitude." The 
general contour of head and feature, how- 
ever, is exact, and the eyes are positively 
the best I have ever succeeded in getting. 
But this picture I intend to suppress as soon 
as I succeed in getting a successful photo- 
graph of the present Riley ^ — for now, as I 
told you, my face is a barren desert, with no 
oasis in the shape of a mustache to break its 
broad monotony of desolation, and I only 
send you this that you may hold it as a sort 
of hostage until my present and future self 
arrives ; then you must return it. The other 
I will send in a few weeks at farthest. 

And now in the meantime, enclose me 
your own, for I can never tell you just how 
eager I am to look upon your kindly face. 
You say you are anything but handsome, 
but I know you will be beautiful to me. God 
bless you always, and keep you forever just 
the good little girl that rests me so! 

Please write me soon. Your letter will 
please me even beyond the most flattering 
ovation that could be given at my approach- 
ing appearance at the shrine of Public Favor. 
183] 



I enclose also announcements of the 
coming Trial* — which please return, as I 
file away every scrap of good and bad that 
anybody ever says about 

Your True Friend, "Till death us do part." 

J. W. Riley 

Greenfield, Ind., 
October 18, 1879. 

Goin' to call you My dear, dear friend, 
today, — 'cause your picture's come at last, 
and I do love it so! I've been talkin' to it, 
and smiling over it and wondering at it, but 
you just stand there dead still, and will not 
even whisper to me in return — and so, like 
the grim old lover of "Beautiful Evelyn 
Hope," I press one blossom in your folded 
hand saying, — 

"There! that is our secret. Go to sleep, — 
You will wake and remember and understand." 

You are not exactly like the picture I have 



♦Doubtless referring to the coming Benefit to be tendered 
him in Indianapolis. 

[84 1 



been holding up before my fancy's eye — 
you are even more womanly than my ideal 

— and O so womanly was she ! — That is 
my one best word of all — Woman. It is 
so regal, high and pure and white! God 
bless you, Woman ! ! 

Have been too confused and tangled up 
to sit for the present Riley, but you may 
look for that now very soon, as I begin to 
breathe once more. The prolonged agony 
attending The Benefit is over now, and I am 
very, very — (I was going to say * 'happy," 
but it aint quite that, — for the old ache in 
my throat is not quite gone and it will never 
go, I guess. But I am Glad, and very, very 
thankful — to God first, then my little girl 

— then all the world. 

Such a brave poem was that you sent me !* 
I do hug it in my arms. God bless you, — 
bless you — bless you — just 'cause I can't 
help thinking that your own heart hurts like 
mine. — Only I'm too selfish to think it 
could hurt worse. I wouldn't allow that, 
though the white lips of your soul moaned 
**I am tired!" — O are you "tired?" Once 

*See poem in full, next following this letter. 
[85 1 



I wrote a poem called "Tired."* That was 
the burthen of it, — Tired! Tired! And I 
must rest. The last verses read : — 

And I must rest! — But do not say **he died," 

In speaking of me, sleeping here alone . 
I kiss my fate as one might kiss a bride. 
And close my eyes in slumber all my own. 
Hereafter I shall neither sob nor moan. 

Nor murmur one complaint: All I desired, 
And failed in life to find, will now be known. — 
So let me dream — Good night! — And on 
the stone 
Say simply, "He was Tired." 

The Benefit has been such a success, in 
every way! You can but be glad with me, 

*The last stanza of this poem which appears in the printed 
editions under the title, "An Outworn Sappho," reads as 
follows: — 

And I must rest. — Yet do not say she died, 
In speaking of me sleeping here alone. 
I kiss the grassy grave I sink beside, 
And close mine eyes in slumber all mine own: 
Hereafter I shall neither sob nor moan 
Nor murmur one complaint; — all I desired 
And failed in life to find, will now be known — 
So let me dream. Good night! And on the stone 
Say simply: She was tired. 
In copying it for Miss Kahle the Poet changed the gender 
from feminine to masculine, thus making it a sort of personal 
requiem, somewhat after the order of Stevenson's famous 
requiem poem. He also improved the third line by sub- 
stituting — 

I kiss my fate as one might kiss a bride 
for 

I kiss the grassy grave I sink beside. 

f 86 1 



so I send press notices without comment of 
my own. You will return the scraps as 
before, as I will need them as references, 
you know; such is business (how I hate the 
very word!). 

Now I hold your hand, and say God bless 
you, and Good by. You will write soon and 
1*11 hope that when I write again I can say 
more than this. 

Yours as ever, 

J. W. R. 



A WOMAN'S CONCLUSION 

I said, if I might go back again 

To the very hour and place of my birth. 

Might have my life whatever I chose, 
Aad live it in any part of the earth. 

Put perfect sunshine into my sky. 
Banish the shadow of sorrow and doubt. 

Have all my happiness multiplied. 
And all my suffering stricken out; 

If I could have known in the years now gone 
The best that a woman comes to know. 

Could have whatever will make her blest. 
Or whatever she thinks will make her so; 

187 1 



Have found the highest and purest bliss 
That the bridal-wreath and ring inclose, 

And gained the one out of all the world 
That my heart as well as my reason chose, 

And if this had been, and I stood tonight 
By my children, lying asleep in their beds. 

And could coimt in my prayers, for a rosary, 
The shining row of their golden heads, — 

Yea! I said, if a miracle such as this 

Could be wrought for me, at my bidding, still 

I would choose to have my past as it is. 
And to let my future come as it will! 

I would not make the path I have trod 

More pleasant or even, more straight or wide, 

Nor change my course the breadth of a hair, 
This way or that way, to either side. 

My past is mine, and I take it all. 
Its weakness — its folly, if you please — 

Nay, even my sins, if you come to that. 
May have been my helps, not hindrances! 

I have saved my body from the flames. 
Because that once I had burned my hand; 

Or kept myself from a greater sin 
By doing a less — you will understand ; 

It was better I suffered a little pain. 

Better I sinned for a little time. 
If the smarting warned me back from death. 

And the sting of sin withheld from crime. 

f88l 



Who knows his strength, by trial, will know 
What strength must be set against a sin. 

And how temptation is overcome ; 
He has learned, who has felt its power within I 

And who knows how a life at the last may show? 

Why, look at the moon from where we standi 
Opaque, uneven, you say; yet it shmes, 

A luminous sphere, complete and grand! 

So let my past stand, just as it stands, 
And let me now, as I may, grow old; 

I am what I am, and my life for me 
Is the best — or it had not been, I hold. 

Alice Carey 

Greenfield, Ind., 

November 22, 1879. 
Dear friend : — 

I*m an awful quiet fellow, ain't I? Sorto' 
mysterious like, almost — 'spect you're be- 
ginning to think. But you'll forgive, I know 
— 'cause you've never failed me yet, and 
somehow I feel so sure you understand. 
**You will wake and remember and xmder- 
stand" — won't you, Evelyn Hope? You 
know that poem of Browning's, don't you? 

Well, I have been very busy; not so busy, 
though, that I have forgotten you — only I 

[89 1 



just couldn^t find time to write the kind of 
letter that I wanted to — and even now you 
see I'm galloping along like a hook-and- 
ladder company to a conflagration. Haven't 
time even to tell you how good your last 
letter was and how it made me bless you 
over and over again. You must guess all 
that — and you can if you will bury your 
kind face away down deep in your pillow 
this night, and think of the grim old face 
that as it bends above this page is molten 
with a smile, and even half-way handsome, 
I believe. 

God bless you — bless you — bless you. 
I say it over and over again. You are good, 
I know — only you must not have presenti- 
ments — or feel blue — or sad — or any- 
way but happy. Do you hear? ^^ 

I'm regularly employed now — what time 
I'm not before the * 'clamouring public," 
lecturing — on a daily paper, and my home 
henceforth is Indianapolis , and you must 
direct care Daily Journal — don't forget 
that! Next time I write I'll make a letter 
of it — this is but a note — the only thing 
I can offer. I enclose a sample of the little 
190 1 



sketches I am forced to dash off now. 
Haven't time for anything but such bits as 
this — and odds and ends in verse — and 
paragraphs — and nothings. 

O yes, — I must tell you about a late 
visit to Mrs. D. M. Jordan, evidently your 
favorite, since you send me so many clip- 
pings from her pen. Mr. Griswold — the 
Fat Contributor — and myself went in ca- 
hoots last week, and lectured jointly for her 
benefit at Richmond, Ind. O, what a time 
we had! If you could only see and know 
her! Why, the very voice of her is pure 
music! And she gave me a little volume 
of her poems with her own handwriting in 
the front — and do you know what I'm 
going to do with it? Going to bundle it up, 
and send it to you to muse over, and laugh 
over — and cry over, and thank God and 
Mrs. Jordan and ME for every line of it 
— Ho!ho! 

And so Good night — Good night! 

"What! both your snowy hands? Ah, then 
I'll have to say good night again!" 

Oh, I must hunt that little song and send it 
[911 



too. It's so like you — or so it seems — 
only you're more vague and shadowy, and 
farther away — yes, even farther than my 
fancy dares to go. 

Yours as ever, 

J. W. Riley 



Indianapolis, Ind., 
December 12, 1879. 

O, my dear girl, how long you have kept 
me waiting! But you're here again, and 
just how glad your letter makes me you will 
never know. I've fancied a thousand awful 
reasons why you haven't written, and a 
thousand corresponding fears have been 
worrying me till — but no matter! — you 
are here at last, and I grab you up and hug 
and hold you till the breath o' me goes 
crumbling into little broken bits of sighs 
like baby-breezes 'fore they've learnt to 
walk without wabblin' — bless 'em! 

I'm mighty glad to think that you think I 
think I'm happy — (I steal this dubious 

[92 1 



phraseology from Coventry Patmore, I be- 
lieve : — 

**I saw him Kiss your Cheek!" ** 'Tis true." 
*'0, modesty!" "Twas strictly kept — 

He thought me asleep — at least I knew 
He thought I thought he thought I slept.") 

But I am about half happy, — I won*t ac- 
knowledge more, — though just why I 
should be I can't see for the life o' me ! I*m 
working hard enough to scare you to death, 
though I hasten to lull your fears by the 
admission that I'm weighing heavier than 
ever before in my life. Just guess how 
big I am! Hundred an' twenty-six pounds I 
O aint it awful! Now let me guess how 
much you weigh — and you must acknowl- 
edge if I guess it right. — Just about one 
hundred and eight pounds. There! aint 
that a good guess? — just from 'way off 
here? 

The "Tired" poem you send me is so full 
of strength — the very bone and thew of 
passionate yearning for that great vast un- 
known good that is always coming to us — 
though it never gets quite here. — 
193] 



"Ah! would you care? and would you bend 
down, Sweet, 
And kiss the chill mouth with regretful pain? 
And would your tears fall downward on the 
hands. 
Pallid, and purified of all earth's stain?" 

To me the poem is almost perfect — though 
had I written it, I might have made it less 
perfect with a concluding verse like this : — 

Christ! you who died ere weariness like this 
Had reached you, for a moment's rest beside 

The one I love, that I might taste one kiss, 
O willingly would I be crucified. 

Such a galloping letter is this, and so 
untidy withal, I'm more than half ashamed 
to offer it. But it's the very best I can do, 
and you're so good I know you'll pardon it 
for all its incompleteness. I want you to 
just keep on liking me all you can, and when 
I do say, or do, unpleasant things, just tell 
me of it, or shut both your fists and pound 
me like a drum — anything is good enough 
for me if even unwittingly I should wound 
your woman's heart in any way. 

I'm up very late tonight — you mustn't 
194 1 



blame me this time — IVe got company — 
you^re here, and so I sit here with your two 
warm hands in mine. There! there! and 
there again! 

J.R. 

Indianapolis, Ind., 
December 26, 1879. 

My dear, dear friend : — 

I can't thank you — I can't write — I 
can^t say one word! I have been lecturing 
'way out west, and am just back to find your 
magnificent Christmas present waiting me 
— and your letter — God bless you, little 
girl, you rest me so! But how bewildered 
I am! I want to send you something in 
return for the pictures (they are here with 
me in more sumptuous quarters than my 
dim old room at home — for here is brussels 
and French furniture, and all that — with 
great molten bulbs of gas to light it up — 
Ah! I'm growing proud and cold and austere, 
shall I say? No, no ! my little girl, I'm only 
growing gentler with my growing fortunes, 
and I like you — O you can't guess — you 
195] 



can never guess how much). I haven't 
time, nor the taste, I fear, to select some 
present you would like — leastwise I dread 
making the attempt — for of course I would 
never know if I suited you or not — for even 
though the gift should displease you, I know 
you would not acknowledge it, and so I'm 
going to do with you just as I have wished a 
hundred times others would do with me 
(though not in your instance — for the 
presents you have given me were just the 
very ones of all the world afforded that I 
want!) — but what Pm going to do — or 
rather what I'm going to propose to do — is 
to send you a present in hard money, for 
you to use just as you like. Will you let 
me do this? I ask in all seriousness. I 
could buy you a picture — I could buy you 
something in statuary — a book — a piece 
of jewelry — (no, I couldn't — 'cause I'm 
almost certain your taste is far above that). 
But no matter — whatever I might buy, I 
am still in doubt if it would be either pleas- 
ing or appropriate, — so I am just going to 
have you tell me that you won't be offended 
if I send my present in money — Hard 
196] 



Cash! Ah! that's a sweet old word if you 
study it rightly! And in offering this, I 
must not forget to assure you that whatever 
amount I shall send, I can freely spare, and 
without in the least inconveniencing my 
own selfish self. In fact, if you don't let 
me do as I want to in this, I'll be mad at 
you — that's all. And you have told me 
time and again that everything I did was 
right, so I must have my way — for I do 
most solemnly assure you that I believe it 
would be right, and were it otherwise I 
would not offer it. So you just begin your 
next letter with "dear friend" as you always 
do, and don't forbid me — then I will know 
that you do indeed trust and believe in 
me, and then my gift, just as munificent 
(no more) as I can make it, shall reach 
you. 

I hold both hands out to you — I look 
your two eyes full of all kindly things — I 
brim them over with pure joy — and some- 
time soon — I hope — I may lean closer yet 
and listen to your voice. 

You must pardon this hurried scrawl, — 
I am busier than a hive o' bees — just such 
[97] 



lots and lots of lecture engagements all over 
the country! 
And still, still I am so hungry! As ever, 

J. W. Riley 

Greenfield, Ind., 

January 2, 1880. 

— And A Happy New Year! 

Dear, dear friend : — 

A week ago I wrote you the enclosed,* 
but have been too big a coward to send it. 
And in all the time I have been withholding 
it I have searched in vain for some appropri- 
ate present for you. I want to send you 
something — but whaty I can't find — so in 
sheer desperation I enclose this week-old 
proposition — though in the meantime I 
have thought of another way of putting it, 
i.e., I'm going to give you — for my New 
Year's gift — you never would guess what 
— I'm going to give you a — Benefit. Ho! 
ho ! Now ain't that just the joUiest idea in 
the world? I'm lecturing, on an average, 

♦Referring to the previous letter, of December 26. 
[98] 



about four times a week, and am succeeding 
so wonderfully in pleasing people, and my- 
self as well, that you must be pleased too, 
and utter no protest. The proceeds of my 
next lecture shall be yours, and you are to 
invest it in whatever way, or ways, you 
please. You can't object to this, — for 
Benefits^ you know, are tendered artists, 
actors, and literary people every day. Even 
your humble servant, you will remember, 
was mighty glad and proud of one extended 
him not long ago. So you must accept the 
one I tender you, though it be not so an- 
nounced upon the bills or hallooed from the 
house-tops. 

Now I am glad, — 'cause at last, at last, 
I have settled within my own bewildered 
and long-suffering brain the most intricately 
complex question that ever tangled its 
relentless talons in the wool of my mental- 
ity. Just think how happy I must be — not 
how happy, but how fortunate — that's 
better. 

Three days ago I met Burdette, the funny 
man of the Hawkey e. Our hitherto diverse 
paths across the lecture field came together 

[99 1 



at last, and we shook hands and swore to 
love each other always. He is just as true 
and pure and good as he is funny, and youM 
like him, I know — you must like him, 
that's all! — 'Cause I do, you know. I'm 
going to enclose to you the card he wrote 
for me, so be good to it always, and nestle 
it away among your sacredest of treasures. 
I write, as I must, all hurriedly. I am 
so busy, as you know. God bless you I 
Write soon — as ever. 

Your old friend, 

J. W. R. 

Indianapolis, Ind., 

January 21, 1880. 

My dear friend : — 

I have stared through all the shelving of 
the world, to at last select and send you 
this.* I don't know whether it will please 

*"The phrase 'and send you this' used in the second line 
of letter of January 21, 1880, refers to Songs from the pub- 
lished writings of Alfred Tennyson, set to music by various 
persons, — being a folio book, boimd in yellow and gold 
cloth and inscribed in Riley's autograph, 'To Miss Lizzie 
D. Kahle with the regards of her friend J. W. Riley, Indian- 
apoUs, Ind., 1880.' " — Signed statement by Elizabeth Brtmn, 
nee Kahle. 

[ 100 1 



you or not. I hope it will — but after all, 
it is so poor a gift. 

It was mighty good of you to say that you 
were poor — and mighty noble in you to be 
proud — only — only — I would like to send 
you something that would be of real value 
to you, being poor. NoWy you know, I'm 
going to be rich, and could help you, and 
would be so glad to — O so glad — and it 
would make me happier and better and 
that's why I do want to help you — if you'll 
ever permit me to. You wanted to help me 
once, and would again, I know, so whether 
the time is come, or ever is to come, you 
must let me help you — and while I can — 
'cause maybe, after while, I can't help any- 
one — not even myself — and in that in- 
stance, I'll call on you sure! 

And so, God bless you always, little girl, 
and always feel and know that with you I 
am wholly good. 

I write hurriedly, as you see. I am 
pressed with hundreds of duties, but soon 
will try to write you at more length. 
As ever yours, 

J. W. Riley 

[1011 



Indianapolis, Ind. 
Feb. 29, 1880. 
My dear friend : — 

I wonder if it has seemed long to you 
since my last letter — it has seemed like 
ages to me. I have been so wonderfully 
busy with my lecture business, and so in- 
volved with its thousand of matter-of-fact 
considerations, that I have delayed writing 
until my mind might be free to dwell on 
pleasant themes. But I find the longer I 
wait the more complicated become con- 
tending forces, so half in despair at last, and 
desperate, I determine to say something to 
you this emptiest of all days — Sunday. 

I have been speaking almost every night 
for weeks and weeks — am very tired of it 
all, I assure you. I have not been meeting 
with the best success either, in a financial 
point of view, but still I am not falling behind 
in any way, and therefore have no reason to 
find fault or be discouraged. One good 
thing is, I have visited no point yet, in the 
capacity of reader, without pleasing those 
who have heard me, and being recalled the 
second time at least. So you see I am at 

[102] 






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least advancing my reputation, and that of 
course is "money in my pocket," as the old 
phrase goes. 

I cannot tell you how often I think of you, 
or with what kindly feeling. I shall never 
forget you, and you must never hurt me by 
thinking me capable of forgetting. You 
know in your last letter you almost question 
the strength of my fidelity — as though I 
could be won away from your regard by 
any force of fate or circumstance! I want 
you always to know that I am your friend, 
and that, although I am forever to be denied 
the warm clasp of your hand, or listen to 
the spoken assurance of your esteem, still 
on and on through Time I yet shall *4ove 
you better than you know," and pray that 
God will bless and make you happy, what- 
ever bitter destiny remains for me. 

I wish that I might see you face to face, 
and tell you just how pitiless and changeless 
is my fate, and make plain to you the many 
seeming paradoxes of my life. But you 
will understand at last, if not now, that I 
am neither fanciful nor misanthropic — 
only most seriously sensible of the one great 
f 103] 



fact of my existence, i.e., that I am power- 
less to stay or change the fate that hurries 
me along to some dread desolation of futur- 
ity. I try to believe otherwise, and laugh 
lightly oftentimes, but still in spite of all I 
get no rest and am so tired. 

I think I oughtn't say such miserable 
things, but what can I say other than this to 
my one best friend of all the world? Do you 
know that you have been kind and good to 
me when I most needed just such help, 
and when, too, not one other friend of all 
that have avowed themselves my friends 
came to me with a word of cheer or heart- 
felt sympathy. And so it is that over and 
over I pray God to make you happy, and 
myself more grateful every day. And if 
ever He will be so good to me, I want to 
come some time and reach this right hand 
out and grasp your own, and tell you in such 
words and v/ays that you will know are true 
as Heaven — that I am indeed your friend 
as you are mine. God keep my little girl 
till that day comes! 

I will enclose with this a photograph — 
the one long-promised. It is like me as I 
1104 1 



now am, though I fear you will not like it 
even half so well as that old tin-type with 
the mustache and the sunken cheeks. 

Please write to me at once, and tell me 
you forgive my long, long silence. Don't think 
anything of me but good — and though I am 
not always happy you must know your let- 
ters make me happier than all things else. 
As ever and always yours, 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, Ind., 

March 20, 1880. 
Dear friend : — 

You are always so very patient with me 
that I fear sometimes I ahnost wait too long 
before answering your letters. Anyway, 
I know how lenient you are, and when 
bothered with much work and cares of other 
kinds, I just think, '*I will put off writing to 
my good friend L. Kahle till Vm in better 
humor, and she will understand." 

I know of nothing new to tell you of, un- 
less it be to say that my prospects are grow- 
ing good again, — and for a long time they 
[105 1 



have been anything but that. Not that I 
have ceased in any measure to strive for 
their advancement — only there come kinks 
and twists and tangles in the timeSy just as 
in the smoothest silken skeins ; and always 
at such times I worry, fume and fret in spite 
of all, and so am never in condition but to 
vex and still disturb, when I should calmly 
take things as I find them. 

I think the lines you quote from Byron 
most appropriate, for I am intensely eager 
to win something of a name, since it would 
seem that all things else must be denied. 
But this is not the prelude of another moan, 
for I shall have no further bitterness to 
waste on Fate. I'm going to do my best to 
smile the wrinkles from my life, and drown 
out all the discords with the best laugh I can 
raise. 

Your own life is, as you have intimated, 
anything but sunshine and fair weather, and 
I want you always to know that whatever it 
has been, is, or may be, you have a true 
friend in me ; and one, too, who can appreci- 
ate from every sad experience just what 
it is to feast on sorrow, and go famishing 
f 106 1 






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<.x/ 



forever for the taste of peace and utter hap- 
piness. When I die — which bless God I 
will do some day — I have no desire at once 
to be translated to the Perfect Land, be- 
cause I want a long, long rest of utter chaos 

— ages of rest and blank forge tfulness, 
wherein I may catch up, and gratify my 
present vast and limitless demands. I say 
this with a half smile and whole earnestness 

— but still— no matter! 

When you write me next, I am going to 
hope that you will tell me more about all 
that old ache of yours, so that I may reach 
out my hands to you, and let you feel that 
they are warm with every sympathy, and 
tender to the touch as are your own. God 
bless you always, and God bless us both, 
and keep us ever strong, with lifted brows, 
and faces set forever heavenward. 

Yours, 

J. W. R. 

(Over). — Here is a little poem I wrote 
last night, and copy for you this bright 
afternoon. — 

f 107] 



SLEEP* 

Orphaned, I cry to thee, 
Sweet sleep : O, kneel and be 
A mother unto me ! 

Calm thou my childish fears, 
And fold mine eyelids to all tenderly, 

And dry my tears. 

Come, Sleep, all drowsy-eyed 
And faint with langour, slide 
Thy dim face down beside 

Mine own, that I may rest 
And nestle in thine arms and there abide 

And be thy guest. 

Good night to every care, 
And shadow of despair — 
Good night to all things where 

Within is no delight! — 
Sleep opens her dark arms, and swooning 
there 
I cry, Good night! 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, Ind., 
April 13, 1880. 
Dear friend : — 

'Spect this'll be an awful scrimpy little 
letter, ^cause I'm all unsettled, like your- 
self, and tangled up so with a thousand 

*The text and pimctuation in our MS. differs considerably 
from the printed version, but we give it here exactly as the 
Poet wrote it. 

I 108] 



things. I was mighty sorry though to find 
in your good letter such an undertone of 
sadness and unrest. Guess we must get 
braver than we are! I can stand my own 
sorrows with more patience than the sor- 
rows of my friends. And you are good to 
me, and have been always, and it would 
make me very glad indeed if anything that 
I might say or do could make you happier. 
I think so much of selfj and dwell so on my 
own needs and desires that sometimes I am 
more than half convinced that I do others 
wrong who suffer just as much and yet 
make no complaint. I know you must have 
much to try your patience, being noble and 
ambitious, yet compelled so long "to labor 
and to wait." But I am sure God must 
mean something by it all. And so, dear 
friend, we'll smile back all the tears and 
say Amen to all God says. You think that 
I have more than you to make me glad, and 
keep me propped securely beneath all the 
burdens Fate can weigh one with. You 
only think so, — though you may be right, 
and I myself wrong, — yet I seem to know 
such utter loneliness as I pray God may 

[109 1 



never even cast its shadow over you. But 
I'm not going to cry out against it any more. 
There! lefs be glad, and ^*Let today pass 
by flower-crowned and singing." 

And so you're stationed now in Pittsburg, 
and I'm glad. I'm glad of everything you 
do, because it's always for the best. You 
are the wisest little woman in the world — 
at least you seem so — and I like you all 
the better, knowing how you have to plan 
to get along and make the most of every- 
thing, and yet find so much time for goodly 
deeds, and kindliness to others all about 
you. 

I've been hoping all this busy season 
through that I might be fortunate enough to 
*4ay up" quite enough money for an idle 
summer, in which I might "take mine ease," 
and run about a bit, and visit you, and take 
you by the hand, and thank you with real 
living words for all your goodness to me. 
But I'm really afraid I'll have to work harder 
than ever — 'cause I've been losing money 
as well as making it, and am just too poor 
for any use — though I do make quite an 
outward show, and keep my chin high in 
f 110 I 



the air. I'm in better health, too, than I 
ever was before, and have just been fairly 
boosting my reputation along ! Next season 
— Ah, the money I will make! Though I 
may make quite enough from this on, for 
my writings are in growing demand, and at 
better prices all the time. My newest 
victory is the New York Sun, And such a 
dear delightful little weenty-teenty hearty 
letter as I got from Mr. Dana the other day! 
I'm going to contribute regularly to his old 
fat paper, and they say, too, that the Sun 
pays higher prices for its contributions than 
any magazine. I enclose my first poem to 
them, and must close this letter now to 
fashion them another rythmic something by 
next mail. 

Write to me, and tell me you are kindo 
happy, anyway! And be happy anyhow, 
and no matter though neither of us can have 
the one-tenth part of all our needs, let us 
thank God heartily that He has made us 
friends. 

As ever yours, 

J. W. Riley 
[111 I 



Indianapolis, Ind., 
May 27, 1880. 

My dear good friend : — 

As usual I have been very busy, and so 
have neglected your last briefest of all 
letters a long time. I wanted, and did start 
to answer it the very day it came — for you 
will remember what a long, long time you 
kept me waiting for it. But God bless you! 
it did [come?]* to me after all, and made me 
glad, though I think too it made me just a 
little sorto sorry as well, for it seemed to 
bear an undertone of sadness along with it, 
and made me fear that you were having a 
much harder time than you deserve. 

The old problem of this existence is al- 
ways a worry to me, when I think about it, 
only I try not to think about it, knowing that 
the old order of labor for the weak and rest 
for the strong — riches for the undeserving 
and poverty for they of generous spirit — 
cannot be altered, but must abide a fixed 
law till Heaven bursts in blossom on our 



*The original is clearly written, but it seems as if the 
author inadvertently omitted a word, — perhaps come. 

1112] 



eyes, — then we'll understand, and not till 
then. 

You have never told me yet what you were 
doing, though that would matter little after 
all, for it is work, and work of any kind, God 
knows, is hard enough; though without it 
we could never be quite so noble as we are, 
bent with the weight of it. All we can do I 
guess is just to bear it and smile anyhow — 
that's what we'll try always to do, "Won't 
we, Pip?" 

Now for months and months, almost, I 
have been doing but little in the progressive 
way — financially, I mean, for otherwise I 
still have God to thank for great success. 
That's what keeps me alive, I think. I work 
very hard, but am stronger, and can stand 
the labor better than I used. 

Nearly two months ago I began contribut- 
ing to the N. Y. Sun (Sunday issue) and am 
growing in favor with my new eastern audi- 
ence, so indications say. I have many 
flattering letters from Mr. C. A. Dana, the 
editor, and will endeavor with all | my [might 
to be a lasting favorite of his. I am sure 
he likes my work — though he sometimes 
1113 1 



criticizes pretty sharply, as he ought to, 
of course, for no one knows better than 
myself that I am anything but perfect in 
my art. 

Here in the city, your pictures still smile 
down upon me, and over and over I want to 
send you something in return, but I guess 
you'll have to wait yet a little longer. Some- 
time you will know that I have not forgotten. 

Summer has flung wide her golden gates, 
and all the land is like a blooming rose. A 
time for rest and utter laziness, and yet we 
can't loll back, nor pause a minute's space. 
But we can be glad for all that, and we will 
— we will. 

Soon I will get together some of my latest 
poems and send them — not many, for I 
haven't written much, being so busy with 
lecturing business. Next season in that 
field I will reap a great harvest, I am sure. 
Then with great wads o' money bursting my 
pockets I will go through at least one sum- 
mer only working as I care to. 

I write you hastily and briefly. I can 
do no better now. I've a Decoration Day 
poem to prepare for the 30th, and so you 

[114] 



see must leave you. I wring your two warm 
woman's hands, and so farewell a little. As 
ever, 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, Ind., 

July 6, 1880. 
Dear friend : — 

Your letter of date June 27th I have been 
forced to neglect because of my ever-grow- 
ing engagements in my work. 

It's almost wrong, I think with you some- 
times, to work with the ambition that I do. 
But I am so eager to succeed — so feverish 
in my desire to be something and somebody 

— that my effort never flags or falters for a 
minute; but, self -impelled, moves on and 
on, gathering newer force and power with 
each succeeding hint of final victory. Hence 
it is that now I find myself almost hedged 
in with engagements for regular contribu- 
tions for a dozen different papers, and con- 
stant and unremitting applications to the 
magazines - — which, by the way, at last I 
have most refreshing signs of conquering 

— having but just within the last two weeks 

f 115 1 



had two poems accepted by them — both 
trifles in their way, but yet enough to indi- 
cate that **the wind is no longer in the 
East," as John Jamdyce would say. And 
for two or three months steadily I have been 
contributing to the New York Sun (Sunday 
issue), where I am meeting with a good 
eastern audience, and evidently pleasing, 
judging from the letters I have received 
from the editor, Mr. Chas. A. Dana, who 
evidently is very kindly disposed, and in- 
clined to humor my vanity in the stubborn 
belief that I will ultimately win. Now, 
there ! — that's all I'll say about my selfish 
self. 

It was very good of you to gratify me with 
some outline of your own doings in the 
struggle of existence, and I was greatly 
interested in all you said, though I could but 
wish, with each line as I read, that I might 
be able to make your path a trifle smoother. 
But after all there's nothing to do but take 
things as they come, and bear with cheer- 
fulness all that seems sent to vex us and 
annoy. Sometimes the way is stony, and 
the path so choked with briars that our foot- 

[116 1 



prints leave red stains along the dust; yet, 
thank God, the way has never been so dark 
— nor may be — but the Christ face may 
smile back upon us from beyond, and woo 
us on imto the final good. And with the 
best encouragement that I can give, I pin 
right here, the latest poem I have written 
for both our striving sakes.* 

I'm a little troubled, too, thinking your 
erratic ramblings in search of the "Golden 
fleece" may keep this letter from your 
hands, for you never told me where I should 
direct it, and of course my only way will be 
to use the old address. So you must write 
me if you do receive it, for until I hear I will 
never rest quite contented — thinking you 
may think me even more neglectful than I 
really am. 

And now I must close, — but first tell 
you it was queer that the poem you sent me, 
"What She Thought" has been a favorite 
of mine for years — not many, perhaps, yet 
I think a half dozen at the least — since its 



*"The poem mentioned in the last line of third paragraph 
of letter of July 6th, 1880, was not preserved, and I have no 
recollection of the title." — From a signed statement by 
Elizabeth Bruim, nee Kahle. 

1117] 



first appearance in the magazine in which 
it first appeared. It is very beautiful and 
tender and pathetic — all that's lovable, and 
were the speaker but the opposite in sex, 
we would be counterparts in hopelessness, 
— since — 

"Questioning thus, my days go on, 
But never an answer comes to me ; 

All love's mysteries, sweet and strange, 
Sealed away from my life must be." 

But like her, too, I have much to live and 

hope for, and after all, I'm not quite sure that 

all of this life's happiness depends upon just 

love. Not that I'm a cynic, but I have seen 

so many — Oh, so very many — dear friends 

that had been happier had they remained 

just friends and never wed each other. 

But it's a solemn thing to think of never 

having one's own home — but here I go 

again! — and I just aint goin' to think about 

it all just to make myself more and more 

miserable. I clasp the warm hand of my 

good girl and laugh along, forgetful of all 

gloomy things! 

And as "Ever the best of friends, aint us 

Pin"?" 

^^P* J. W. Riley 

1118 1 



Indianapolis, Ind., 
Aug. 22, 1880. 

Dear little friend : — 

Your last letter has been neglected a long 
time — two weeks, I guess, but I just 
couldn't help myself, — being hurried, flur- 
ried, worried all the time. I should have 
liked much better to have answered at once 
with the influence of your words fresh upon 
me — for the letter was so very good and 
cheery lilie, although at times it had enough 
of sadness in it, too, to make it hurt a little. 
And I'm 'most afraid the little girl [is] often 
gloomier and more disconsolate than she 
would have me know! Well, well, — you 
must be strong, since after all, without 
strength there is very little in existence we 
could bear at best. 

You're a queer little nomad, you are! and 
you can't settle down into that **garret of 
your own" any too soon, 'cause I am grow- 
ing quite impatient to visit you, and will 
surely come some day when you least expect 
me. Last year I fondly hoped I might go 
capering down your way — lecturing — but 
[119 1 



didn't get a call within hundreds of miles of 
you, and now this season I'm going to hope 
again, and if I don't get an engagement 
down that way, am at least going to try to 
save money enough out of it all to make a 
visit to you in the spring vacation. I have 
tolerably "hard lines" through the summer, 
because, although I write almost constantly, 
the pay as yet is anything but munificent, 
and besides I have so many demands be- 
side my own to supply. The only thing left 
you or me to do is to make the best of what 
the gods so gingerly bestow. That's what 
they all have to do anyhow! Sometimes 
I'm foolish enough to envy those who have 
no end of leisure, wealth *'and a' that," 
but am generally not long in discovering 
my mistake, for no matter who they be, they 
always have some source of misery that 
poverty alone knows nothing of, and is there- 
fore by far the happier state. 

You sent a little poem to me that sounded 
like you, 'cause it was "Tired" — as I know 
you were. Now, don't you deny it — for 
of course you must grow very weary of the 
dull old stupid "double-double toil and 

[120] 



trouble" sort of existence sometimes. It's 
natural, but you mustn't encourage such a 
feeling. God knows the best is bad enough, 
but it is simple duty for us to meet all things 
bravely, and with sunshine in our faces, 
though the storm raves in our hearts. God 
will recompense us yet for every ache of 
pain we undergo. And know, too, always 
that your own burden, however it may chafe 
and weigh you down, is but a feather's 
weight compared with thousands that are 
borne without a murmur but of gracious 
prayer and patient faith that God's ways, 
however strange to us, are always for the 
best. 

The summer has been a very trying one 
for me. That is, it's been simply like every 
other summer, — only with less rest in it, 
— but I'm growing more and more content, 
I think, and willing to accept things, good 
and bad alike, with proper patience and 
appropriate thankfulness. I'm at least mov- 
ing a little toward the far height I have 
fixed upon for [the] perch of my ambition. 

Yesterday, I had the nicest letter imagin- 
able from Ella Farman, editor of that 
[121] 



delightful Child's Magaziae, Wide Awake, 
She likes a little poem I ofifered her, but 
must have a more appropriate verse by way 
of ending, etc., etc., and so I wrote as she 
directed, and am almost certain it will please 
her. It is a little jingle called *The Land 
of Used-to-Be," and you may keep an eye 
out for it, and when it appears, tell me what 
you think of it — though I know you'll like 
it. 

And you asked me if I wrote a poem you 
saw, called "Delilah." Perhaps so. I 
wrote, about a year ago, a poem of that title, 
though there may be others of that same 
title better than mine. 

Did the one you saw begin : — 

I loved her, why I never knew — 
Perhaps, because her face was fair; 

Perhaps, because her eyes were blue. 
And wore a weary air. 

If so, I wrote it — and you must not be 
jealous, as you say, because poets, to inter- 
pret all things as their mission, must often- 
times be sorry dogs themselves. However, 
1122 1 



I must not let you think that I ever have 
loved seriously visions only; one part of 
my life has been seriously scarred with 
dissipation — as I think I have often inti- 
mated to you, because I would never wil- 
fully attempt the denial of any fact, however 
impleasant the acknowledgment of it would 
be. You will know that I will be glad 
always of your friendship, and that mine for 
you is now as always, and God bless us 
every one! 

J. W. Riley 



Indianapolis, Ind., 

Oct. 6, 1880. 

Dear friend : — 

And so you wonder if I have really missed 
you since you wrote last? Well, I really 
have, and what is more, I am growing more 
and more mystified over your strange ways 
all the time. Just a week or so since, the 
little picture came — the queer little * 'Crink- 
um-crankum" girl, which you have always 

[123 1 



insisted is like you.* And you are a queer 
little **Crinkum-crankum" girl, sure enough; 
and, to be dead-honest now, Fm glad you 
are, I wouldn't give the snap of my thumb 
for just ordinary little girls. The world is 
full of them — and they, in consequence, 
are not novel — so, my dear little "Mar- 
chioness," I am werry proud o' you — werry 
proud indeed! But what I was going on 
to say, was — Here came the picture, and 
the briefest note saying for me not to write 
till I heard from you again — that you were 

*"The little picture referred to in first paragraph of letter 
of October 6th, 1880, and designated as the 'little Crinkum- 
crankum girl,' was a small imitation bumtwood of a little 
girl with simbonnet, bearing the title 'Looking for Jimmy,' 
which I sent him at that time. 

I might here explain that the constant allusions to my 
poverty came about from the fact that in my letters I mis- 
represented to him my real financial condition — which 
was, that while not rich, I enjoyed from my father a sufficient 
allowance to supply every ordinary want; but believing he 
would better appreciate me and my letters, I throughout the 
correspondence maintained the attitude of not absolute but 
near poverty, and having to live in meager quarters on a 
small income which I myself earned; this was in order that 
he himself, being poor, would believe me to be more sym- 
pathetic with his actual condition and aspirations. 

The reference in latter part of first paragraph, to being *on 
the wing,' and not to write until he heard from me again, 
came about through an ambition that grew out of my isola- 
tion at New Brighton, and a desire to do something in the 
world — which led to my going to Pittsburgh and working 
in the Fort Pitt Glass House, where they did china painting, 
in which I wished to perfect myself." — Signed statement 
by Elizabeth Brunn, nee Kahle. 

1124 1 



"on the wing," so to speak — as our dear 
old "Doctor Marigold" would say, — 

"North and south, and west and east, 
Winds liked best, and winds liked least; 
Here and there and gone astray 
Over the hills and far away." — 

And there was really no telling where you 
would amchor — or when. Now I thought 
that was odd — kindo piques a fellow like 
me to be told not to write, when I'm so 
used to being asked, nay even coaxed and 
pled with to do just the opposite — and by 
the very smilingest of all imaginable girls-- 
and the most anxiousest too ! — not that 
I'm at all handsome, or even good-looking, 
but because — because — I hardly know 
why the silly things will act so — but they 
do act so, — and perhaps it is for that very 
indefinable reason that I — don't write to 
them if there's any possible way out of it — 
Now! — And I like this shabby little girl, 
turning her back toward me, and staring 
wistfully the other ivay^ better than all the 
others, however daintily they dress and tilt 
their smirking faces up to mine. Fact is, 
1125] 



I am sure you are a good girl, though you 
do say you are not so good as I am. You 
can't say that, though, in anything like a 
convincing way to me, for I know you are 
worth a thousand of me, — God bless you! 
Yes, I am truly glad you are back home 
again. I don't like to think of you out in 
the great coarse, rasping world. It's a 
horrible place to be, and a place, too, where 
we are apt to lose our gentler natures — and 
with every reason. And however poor your 
home is, always rest content with it, know- 
ing that 'To stay at home is best." — 

*'Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest. 
Home-keeping hearts are happiest. 
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly 
A hawk is hovering in the sky — 
To stay at home is best" 

And when I do come, — as I really am going 
to try very hard to do sometime, — I want 
to find you — At Home. Wish you might 
see my home — if for no other reason but 
that the contrast would make your own so 
much brighter — 'cause my home is in no 
wise even worthy of the name. It's the 
I 126 1 



place I never go to but when absolutely 
forced to by the fear that if I don^t the out- 
side world will know how really miserable 
a place it is. — But I must back to my 
adopted motto. — 



"Whistle and hoe, 
Sing as you go, 
Shorten the row 
By the songs you know!" 



And you've got lots o* things to explain to 
me — eh? Well, as to that, you need ex- 
plain nothing whatever, for I am almost 
certain that I know already everything you 
would have me — and I like you all the 
better for everything in your life. 

But I am not at all a political sort o' fellow 
— as you suspect from the "Drum" poem. 
But I am at times a trifle patriotic. You 
guessed the right side, though, when you 
set me in among the Garfield guards. I 
take no open part whatever, but like the 
Republicans, simply, I think, because they 
helped God to liberate the slaves. That is 
the grand first principle. 
1127 1 



I have sent you two or three papers re- 
cently, — to your old Pittsburgh address, 
— hope you'll get them, if you haven't al- 
ready. I opened here some weeks ago to 
a fine audience, and I think among the 
papers sent you printed account of the suc- 
cess of it. I anticipate a more fortimate 
season than last, but of course may be 
disappointed. However, I shall not moan 
any more. 

The magazine poems you say you have 
not seen — neither have I. They have not 
been published yet — though I look for them 
next month. One in St. Nicholas^ and one 
in Wide Awake. The first is simply non- 
sense jingle, but the Wide Awake poem 
(the first of two that they accepted, called 
**The Land of Used-to-be"), I am sure you 
will like. 

And now I must close. I would like to 
write more, but I just can't — I am so 
tangled. You will know I always think 
pages and pages more than I can tell you. 

In your next you may tell me if you would 
like a very flattering lithograph of this plain 
face of mine, and if you do I will gladly send 

1128 1 



it — even it is far from good-looking, but 
it's got my tilt o' the head, and I'm vain of 
that, and want you to see it. 
As ever and always. 

Your true friend, 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, 
November 19, 1880. 

My dear good friend : — 

Your last letter is best of all letters — it 
is, and I'd like to devote hours and hours 
to the answer it deserves, but have only 
seconds now at command, and brief ones 
too. 

I am preparing for the road again, and 
with some promise of better success than 
I met with last season. Fact is, I really 
think I'm going to make a little money. 
Want you to pray for me anyhow — 'cause I 
do so need it. I'm glad all the time that 
you're at home — that's the place for little 
girls, you know, and then, I might sometime 
go way down there to see you, and it 'ud 
be awful if you wasn't there — wouldn't it? 

1129] 



I just say these words to wedge in with 
the picture — and a thousand thanks for the 
space you reserve for it — God bless you 
and keep you smiling till I write. As ever, 

J. W. R. 



Indianapolis, Ind., 
March 15, 1881. 
Dear friend Lizzie : — 

I fear I have been really neglecting you a 
little, but you must know how selfish I am, 
and how feverish it makes me to be always 
striving after so much and attaining so little. 
This is all the word of excuse I will offer, 
and I know you'll imderstand. 

And I'm very glad indeed to think you 
have missed me all this while. Truly, I 
think such friends as we have grown to be 
— so oddly, too, and never having seen each 
other — are quite as necessary to each other 
as they whose hands are often clasped, and 
who sit face to face so many happy times, 
forgetful of all things that ache and pain. 
But we must still go on, I guess, each won- 
dering if the other is as we have pictured to 
f 130 1 



ourselves; and, if so, longing for, at least 
a sight — a word — a touch. Perhaps, dear 
little friend, this may be all the mutual joy 
God has intended for us. I often think so, 
and I often at such times try the comfort in 
the old lines of Lowell's — and you must 
speak them with me, with a trust so warm 
and bright that I will find it still unfading on 
your lips though I look not on your face till 
Heaven is ours : — 

"Of all the myriad moods of mind 

That through the soul come thronging. 
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind. 

So beautiful as longing? 
The things we long for, that we are 

For one transcendent moment 
Before the Present, poor and bare. 

Can make its sneering coroment. 

O would we know the heart's full scope 

Which we are hourly wronging, 
Our lives must climb from hope to hope 

To realize our longing. — 
To let the new life in, we know 

Desire must ope the portal . . . 
Perhaps the longing to be so 

Helps make the soul immortal." — 

Anyway, we must be glad, whatever 
comes — whatever stays away. And, there, 

[131 1 



now! that's enough of sorrowful specu- 
lation. So be glad with me — or, rather, 
affect to, and compel a gladness that with 
patient humoring, at last will learn to love 
you better all the time, and so abide with 
you through every ill. And to start out 
with, you must be glad to have me tell you 
that your letters are just the opposite from 
being *'imendurably monotonous," as, evi- 
dently, in one of your "horribly blue moods" 
you have been trying to persuade yourself. 
And however ^^vain^^ you may acknowledge 
yourself, I'm still vainer, don't you see? 
And I'm going to positively forbid your read- 
ing that misanthropic old Byron, whose dark 
foreboding, cheerless mutterings you some- 
times quote to me; and, instead, command 
you to read my dear, rare, lovable Long- 
fellow — who, however sad he gets, can 
always see a glorious promise somewhere 
on beyond. 

I'm awful proud when you tell me of 
meeting those who know me "as my works 
have been," and am sure I would like Mr. 
Douthitt as you so pleasantly describe him. 

And here I am at the end of both my space 
1132 1 



and time. Now will you just go on in fancy 
with all the other pages I would like to write 
to you — 'cause I do want to write many, 
many more. And I want you, too, to just 
go on with your drawing class — your 
home-work — or, as the funny man in the 
**Screaming Farce" would say, "Your do- 
mestic avocations" — only finding time to 
write me a little oftener than you do. 

As ever and always, yours, 

J. W. Riley 



^ Indianapolis, 

June 23, 1881 
Dear friend : — 

Seems to me like ages since I have written 
to you, though I have not forgotten you for 
an hour in all that time. I have been very, 
very busy, and through much of the long 
silence have been fretted and worried be- 
yond measure. Now, however, I am glad 
to tell you that all is untangling once more, 
and my eYei-promising prospects are more 
promising than ever in my life before. 
1 133 1 



I am busy now, aside from the daily 
drudge-work I cannot escape, elaborating 
a scheme to get East the coming lecture 
season. May not succeed, but am almost 
assured that I will, and that, too, under the 
most flattering circumstances. 

Do not expect a letter this time. I can at 
best but write a page or two, but you will 
know, for all that, that I do the very all-in- 
all in my power. Life and circumstance 
have not been very friendly toward me for 
a long, long while, but they are growing 
gentler, I believe, all the time; and so 
though not a pampered favorite of theirs by 
any means, I can but feel that I am slowly 
and surely ingratiating myself into their 
higher favor. 

Is there anything newer to tell you? I 
am so ashamed at times writing to you of 
nothing but myself — myself — Myself! 
But you must forgive it all, siuce for years 
my himger and ambition have made [me] 
think of little else. I want to succeed — 
I must, I could do such worlds of good 
if I were rich — and that good, too, that I 
positively owe to others. 
(134 1 



The city here is very dull and stupid just 
now. It is dry and harsh and parched. 
There is no juice in it, and sometimes I 
absolutely stifle. Is it well with my little 
friend down there at her old home? You 
think it a dull place sometimes, and the old 
ache comes in your throat, I know — but 
bless you, little friend, the world is ten times 
worse, and it does jostle so! and O the thou- 
sand and one little mean treacheries one 
meets ! To escape them and ride over them 
and trample them down — down — down 
where they belong, one must have the 
money-scepter in one's fist. Then be a 
king indeed. 

Will you always think kindly of me? — 
True friends are so refreshing, being so rare. 
You are my true friend and I am yours — in 
fact — ^^Ever the best of friends — aint us 
Pip?'' God bless you, and good-bye a little 
while. 

As ever, 

J. W. Riley 

I will copy my last poem on next page for 
you. — 

1 135 ] 



BABY'S DYING 

Baby's dying! 
Do not stir : 

Let her spirit lightly float 
Through the sighing 
Lips of her — 

Still the murmur in the throat — 
Let the moan of grief be curbed — 
Baby must not be disturbed! 

Baby's djdng! 
Do not stir: 
Let her pure life lightly swim 
Through the sighing 
Lips of her — 

Out from us and up to Him — 
Let her leave us with that smile — 
Kiss and miss her after while! 

J. W. R. 

June 22, '81. 

Indianapolis, Ind., 
August 9, 1881. 
Dear friend : — 

Your last good letter has been neglected 
for more than a week. I wanted to write 
at once upon receipt of it, but could not pos- 
sibly — I am so bothered and crowded 
every way. It seems that the further on in 

1136] 



life I get the greater my trials. This is not 
as it should be, for one so fondly hopes (and 
justly) that rest is somewhere on ahead, and 
to find no rest whatever, but instead still 
newer complications of tasks and trials is 
most pathetic and disheartening, — isn't it? 
In that particular I think our two experiences 
must bear quite a likeness — only your 
capacity of patience so exceeds my own that 
I look upon you enviously, and would most 
gladly exchange with you. 

There is no new thing to tell you of, only 
that there is a faint hope of my getting East 
the coming season. I have just received 
word from the Redpath Lyceum Bureau 
that my name will be on their lists, and for 
me to at once prepare my circular, and send 
a circular containing my programme, press- 
nities [press notices?] and personal letters 
of favor and compliment from such celebri- 
ties as Governors, Senators, Authors, etc., 
as I may be able to interest in my behalf. 
These will be headed by one from Mr. Bur- 
dette, of the Hawkeyey who has already 
been of vast service to me, and of whose 
friendship I am assured for many reasons. 
1137 1 



Of course I am anxious as to the result. 
In the meantime, I am forced to be at other 
work — not only verse-carpentering, but 
editorial work as well — this latter being 
more lucrative to me and satisfactory to the 
public, but very trying indeed, since I take 
no delight in it, but shrink from it with 
almost positive aversion. 

I write hurriedly. I can do but this. 
When you told me you had scarce two let- 
ters from me in a long year's time, I felt 
justly rebiiked; but, my dear friend, could 
you know my unfortunate temperament and 
surroundings I know you would forgive me 
without the asking. 

God bless you and keep you always happy, 
is the sincere prayer of 

Your less fortunate friend, 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, Ind., 
September 10, 1881. 
Dear friend of mine : — 

I can write you, in answer to your long, 
good letter, but a few lines. Will you 
[ 138 1 



understand? I am particularly busy, get- 
ting in readiness for the coming lecture 
season, — being, at last, nearing my ambi- 
tion, and engaged by the Redpath Lyceum 
Bureau, Boston, sponsored by Robt. J. Bur- 
dette, "The Hawkey e Man." — Soon I will 
forward you scheme of this season^s pro- 
gramme. Till I get a breathing space I can 
scarce hope to have a word for you. When 
any promise of success, be sure I will let 
you know. Everything with me is particu- 
larly flattering and I am feverish with im- 
patience, being starved for so long! 

This is but a word. You must interpret 
it. God bless you — me — all who so need 
it. As ever and always, 

Your friend, 

J. W. Riley 

P. S. — I am particularly engaged with 
humorous editorial matter, which seems to 
be taking well, and pays better than verse. 
Hence more of it now than the latter. I 
enclose specimen from today's issue. 

[139 1 



Indianapolis, Ind., 
December 13, 1881. 
Dear friend : — 

Won't you tell me where you are, and how 
you are, and what you are doing? Long 
ago you said, if I were silent for a long time 
you would know, without any explanation 
from me, that I was too busy, and couldn't 
write. I hope you have not forgotten, and 
I hope too that all this time you have been 
finding that excuse for me. I have been 
working very hard indeed, and am glad to 
tell you, as I think you will be glad to hear, 
that my more than ordinary industry is 
meeting with a more than ordinary reward. 
I have been devoting nearly all my time 
toward the lecture, and being now under 
management as above [Redpath Lyceum 
Bureau] and in splendid and ever-growing 
favor with the bureau, my prospects are 
very, very bright. 

As yet, I have been filling Western en- 
gagements only, but leave for the East the 
latter part of this month, — my first engage- 
ment, — in all probability at Tremont 
Temple, Boston. 

1140 1 



I have only time to tell you of my good 
fortune, and to enclose to you a gruesome 
little sketch that I happened upon not long 
ago while *'on the road." 

I will be particularly glad to have a word 
from you, and you must so gratify me. 
Address as always, and if not in the city here 
when it arrives, it will be forwarded to me. 

As ever, 

Your faithful friend, 

J. W. Riley 



Indianapolis, Ind., 

Jan. 18, 1882. 
Dear friend : — 

Well — I have been East, conquered, 
and am back again, without the ghost of a 
chance to stop and see you on the way. I 
had hoped that I would have full leisure to 
find you, either going or coming, but being 
delayed in Boston some days, in order to 
avail myself of Club invitations, it so hurried 
me to make Western engagements, I hadn^t 
a minute on the home-way when I started. 

f 1411 



But I am to have other Eastern engage- 
ments, and will hope then to find the oppor- 
tunity so long denied. Fact is, I am becom- 
ing just a trifle popular, and with a growing 
tendency in that direction. I can't write 
more now. I sent you papers. Did you 
get them? They will tell you all my suc- 
cesses, etc., etc. 

As ever your friend, 

J. W. Riley 



Greenfield, Ind., 
December 31, 1882. 

Dear friend : — 

I have forgotten nothing, as you seem to 
think, — only it seems the last year with 
me has been a long numb spell — an un- 
ending lethargy, — however I have tried 
to fancy it had any life in it, or one thrill of 
glory left. Your memory has been with me 
all the time — but I could do nothing to 
deserve it — feeling and knowing you were 
better without my friendship. Sometimes 
I feel sure I am good, but the sensation is a 

fl42l 



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rare one and as years go by it comes at 
longer intervals and stays for briefer spells 
— until, at last, I am left vainly crying, "Is 
there a way to forget to think!" I am still 
meeting with more and more success, but 
that seems even more pitilessly pathetic 
than the old-time agony of effort and hunger 
for it. What is to become of it all I hardly 
care — I am only stoically waiting for the 
issue * 

But I thank you more than I can tell you 
for all your kindness to me, and envy you 
for your great bravery and patience. Your 
character in my eyes stands level with any 
heroine of History. God loves you for it, 
and protects and keeps you, as I pray He 
may for all time from here to Heaven. 

The beautiful vases came, but one was 
broken — that one is me ! The other is 
yourself, so it is very good to look upon, and 
I have brought it home, where all my best 
things are, together with your pictures — 
and they gladden all the gloom of the old 
home that needs them so. Soon I want to 
send something of like worth to you, but 

♦The dots appear in the MS., — nothing has been omitted. 

H43 1 



when and where I will find it I cannot guess 

— but must count on your patience again. 
Day after The New Yeary which I*m going 

to try to love, I start for Ohio engagements 

— Then for the East again ; and, if ever I 
can come, I'll come to New Brighton again.* 

Hoping that the New Year may be as good 
to you as you have been to me, I am as ever, 

Your sincere friend, 

J. W. Reley 

January, 1883. 

A Happy New Year! 

Dear Little Girl:—- 

Here on this glad New Year's Day comes 
your beautiful gift. You are so very good 
to me — so very, very good. I am all grati- 
tude ; but that doesn't half express my feel- 
ings ; and I fear I never can, as I would so 
like to. God bless you always, and don't 

♦Mrs. Brunn {nee Kahle) says that sometime in 1882 
Riley called on her, and that thereafter he made two more 
calls, about a year apart. It may be inferred that at the first 
meeting they were both more or less disillusioned, though 
Riley's last letters are not without a tone of ardency, and he 
seemed disinclined to break off their relationship. — Ed. 

I 144 1 



let you die till I go on before to plan some 
sweet surprise for you that Heaven had 
never thought of without me. 

I can only write this little page, but you 
will know how everything is hurrying me. 
As ever your true friend, 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, Ind., 
February 10, 1883. 
My dear friend : — 

Your good letter meets me here, just as 
I am returning from the far West, and how 
glad I am to hear from you again! Now I 
can explain to you my long silence since last 
seeing you and promising to write. Your 
address, which I then took down in pencil 
hastily, I lost in some way, and never being 
able to find or recall it, I of course could not 
write — though over and over again I 
wanted to. 

There was something indefinable in your 
manner (although you appeared quite happy 
and content) that someway impressed me 
with the belief that you were neither happy 
nor pleased with the world or myself — and 
1145] 



I have so much wanted to write and try to 
make you cheerier. Now that your letter 
and address is here, I can speak to you 
again — though I cannot tell you with what 
great delight and eagerness. You're a 
noble, brave, good girl — the gentlest wo- 
man, and the truest friend, so you must try 
with me still to be hopeful and not believe 
the world as worthless as it sometimes 
seems. 

Twice since I saw you last I have stopped 
in Pittsburgh — but how could I hope to 
find you? The disappointment made me 
very miserable, dear friend, and yet at the 
selfsame time you were doubtless thinking 
I was forgetting you. As your friendship 
is most loyal, so is mine. Always remember 
this — and that there is a God and a most 
merciful Father who loves His children all, 
I am assured, and you must believe with me. 
Of course we are tried here — so heavily 
burdened and bowed down that we must 
cry out sometimes, but always we may steal 
off in the dark and nestle our wet .faces in 
our pillows, fancying we are once more lean- 
ing at the mother's knee, and that the dear 

I 146 1 



old tender face is still above us, and the 
warm sweet soothing hands are touching 
hair and brow, and bringing back the simple, 
childish faith inherited of her. God bless 
us and make us stronger in this glad belief. 
We must not be cast down. You have 
always seemed so patient — so steadfast — 
so abiding in your trust in the Good, that 
now it would be terrible to see you anything 
but just the same glad sermon of the woman 
that you are. And if you, now, will promise 
me to so strive to remain hopeful and strong 
and glad, I will answer your request, and 
promise you to give up the evil thing that 
has been killing me. Shall we not strike 
hands on this? Yes! 

Your reference to your will touched me 
very deeply. You must not think me so 
helpless, my dear friend. You must not 
make a child of me like that. I bless you 
for your goodness, and the Christ-like kind- 
liness of your interest, but you must make 
me stronger — not weaker. May I come 
and see you soon? I will be going East 
again shortly, and would like so to see and 
talk with you. Write me that you are 
[147 1 



happier and stronger, and the world is bet- 
ter and brighter all the time. As always, 

Your true friend, 

J. W. Riley 

Indianapolis, Ind., 
February 25, 1884. 
Dear friend : — 

Am home again for a brief time, but find 
no letter from you, as I had hoped to find in 
waiting. Why have you not written? Did 
you not get my last in prompt answer to 
yours mailed February 5th? 

I have been, and still am, very busy, and 
now can't tell you how pleased I would be 
to hear some pleasant word of you. Please 
write me here — and, if away, it will be 
forwarded. 

An after-dinner speech* — my very latest 
attempt at anything approaching the liter- 
ary — I enclose, hoping, my dear friend, 
something in it will please you. 

As ever, 

J. W. RHEY 

♦Mrs. Brunn says she did not preserve this speech. 
[148 1 



Greenfield, Ind., 
June 26, 1884.* 
Dear friend : — 

I have been quite ill, and am now little 
better, but improving. I am glad indeed 
to get your little "Grandma" letter, but 
can't tell by it whether you have moved 
from or to 568 Fifth Ave., [Pittsburgh] and 
have no letters of yours here that I may 
refer to, to put me right. This is to tell you 
only this, as I can only lie propped in bed 
and have nothing in my head anyhow but 
aches. I address and send this as I do 
knowing that whether old or new address, 
Mrs, Matthews will get it, and present to 
you. 

By the time I hear your reply I think I 
will be real well again — then will write you 
something worthier. Never you think the 
sore-fingered grandboy forgets! 
As ever, j ^ ^ 

*Mrs. Brunn states that this letter was received shortly 
after her marriage, and that she did not answer it. It was 
the last letter she ever received from Riley. — Ed. 

"The letter referred to in the first paragraph of this letter 
of June 26th as my little 'grandma' letter volunteered some 
advice respecting his one failing." — Signed statement by 
Elizabeth Brunn, nee Kahle. 

[149 1 



p. S. — This I wrote weeks ago and 
thought I sent it to the office, but just now 
I find it here — "I forget everything ,^^ I 
should have said, instead of ending other 
side as I did! 

I do wonder if this will ever reach you. 
Someway I*m afraid not. I have "so much 
to do — so little done!" Almost ready to 
cry out. Time seems utterly stagnant — 
and my life and all, and everything! I go 
about and I write some, but always I am 
very tired and blue and hopeless. The 
sun shines, but / don't. If you do get this, 
write to me at once and do something, if 
possible, to "chirk a fellow up!" 

God bless you, my friend, and me, too! 

As ever, 

J. W. R. 



Greenfield, Ind., 
June 26, 1884. 
Mrs. Matthews : — 

Having addressed our mutual friend, 
Miss Kahle, through your care on former 
occasions, and now being uncertain as to her 
1150] 



present place and number, I ask you to 
favor me by giving — or mailing to her — 
the enclosed note. By so doing you will 
place me under many obligations; and so 
hoping, I am, 

Very respectfully yours, 

JAS. W. Riley 

P. S. — If Miss Kahle is not with you, 
and her address unknown, will you favor 
me further by return of letter? 

J. W. R. 



11511 



APPENDIX 

It will be remembered that in Riley's 
first poem written to Elizabeth Kahle (after- 
wards Mrs. Brunn) he stated that he had 
always known her, — 

.... long before 
God sprinkled stars upon the floor 
Of Heaven and swept this soul of mine 
So far beyond the reach of thine. 

And those readers who believe in Spiritual- 
ism will perhaps be interested in the fol- 
lowing statement by Mrs. Brunn : — 

"When James Whitcomb Riley had been 
dead less than a year a seance was being 
held by Professor Pierre L. A. O. Keeler 
at the Boquet Street Spiritual Church, Oak- 
land. I, being present, requested a mes- 
sage from James Whitcomb Riley, this 
message to be in verse, and the subject 
to be *After Death.* I stated that I desired 
this verse to end a book which I then con- 
templated producing, using the letters I had 
1153 1 



received from Riley as the ground work. 
To that request I received the following 
reply, written on a slate, but not in Riley's 
autograph : — 

As you might picture an angel 
touching gently the harp strings at the 
throne, so do your sweet contempla- 
tions of me touch the harp strings of 
my soul, and put me in harmonious 
accord with all about me. I wish you 
were with me. 

If possible come here Sunday night 
and I will give you through this me- 
dium a fitting verse with which to close 
*After Death.' 

James Whitcomb Riley 

A week later — on the succeeding Sun- 
day night — the following lines entitled 
*After Death', were given in the form of 
slate-writing [see facsimile], in Riley's own 
autograph, as follows : — 

'Tis after death — the mortal struggle 

done, — 
Tis after death — the new life just 

begim, — 
That rays effulgent from the Land of 

Light 

1154 1 






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Whose dawn ne*er knows the shadows 
of a night, 

Past distant suns whose dreamy mists 
display 

That winding belt we call the Milky 
Way, 

Shoot down the starry depths to thy 
lone soul 

And Hght its journey toward the on- 
ward goal. 

James Whitcomb Riley 

Later the following spirit message was 
received from Riley and was published in 
the Progressive Thinker, of February 9, 
1918) in the Message Department, edited 
by Pierre L. O. A. Keeler: — 

James Whitcomb Riley. — I am here 
today to take advantage of simply an- 
other way to extend pleasant thoughts 
to those on earth who are dear to me. 
Today I come from the heights of the 
supernal world to place at this sancti- 
fied shrine a kindly tribute of memory 
to a woman who in youth and maidenly 
beauty I loved as dearly as my own 
life. For this sweet soul my esteem, 
respect and affection have never faded. 
To know her is but to make one in- 
cline to the noble and lofty. Please 

1 155 1 



convey my tender thoughts to Mrs. 
Elizabeth Brunn, of Pittsburgh, Pa. 

About a year after the first message was 
received at the Oakland Church the follow- 
ing, written in pencil on the customary card 
that is placed within the slate for lead pencil 
messages, was transmitted through the 
same medium by whom the first slate read- 
ings were received, and read as follows : — 

Dear One : Your tenderness of soul 
comes to me immistakably. I have 
never ceased to think of you, and have 
seen you whenever there was a way to 
do so. The sentiment of my young 
heart I was at a loss to know how to 
analyze in those days back in the 'gone 
by.' Now I know they were the ech- 
oes of the lone shafts that fell upon 
me from your dear eyes and mind and 
heart and soul. I loved you more 
than I knew, and certainly more than 
you knew. 

I am unable to locate the poem you 
spoke of, either in my memory or my 
surroundings. When you come over 
here, your mother will meet you first, 
then I will. We recognize by instinct, 
— intuition. Your own fertile brain 
that could conceive such a book as you 

1156 1 



have arranged can think of a better 
title than I can. 

I cannot think of anything I have 
left unsaid or undone. All you can do 
for my happiness is to keep on claim- 
ing me as your own. Your book seems 
to me complete. I rejoice that you 
wrote me, — remembered 

Yours faithfully, 

James Whitcomb Riley 

The statement in the foregoing in regard 
to the 'poem' was in reply to a request from 
me for the text of a poem entitled *To a 
Poet,' which poem was sent him by me and 
was the means of beginning our acquaint- 
ance. 

The next statement was in reply to a 
question as to how we should recognize our 
friends over there. 

The next statement is in response to a 
declaration made by me of my intention to 
write a book about him, which was to con- 
tain the letters I had received from him. 

The next communication of the spirit of 
Mr. Riley was received through Mr. Roy 
Holmyard, whose address is No. 5 Hedge- 
row Lane, Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio, and 
1157 1 



was made known to me through a letter, 
addressed to me by him, stating that at a 
certain seance the spirit of Riley had ap- 
peared, and among other things asked if 
any one present knew Mrs. Elizabeth Brunn, 
of Pittsbxirgh, Pa., and if there was not, to 
please commimicate to her the following 
message : — 

There are memories embalmed in the 
love of the heart 
Which Uve on while existence doth 
nm; 
In the fondest of these hath my whole 
life been part 
Of the life of Elizabeth Brunn. 

I think of no more evidential mes- 
sage than to write the above verse and 
to explain it by sa3ring that in my 
youth I loved a yoimg and beautiful 
girl whose image never faded, as did 
other fancies and forms and events, 
from my tender deceased heart and 
hope and soul. Mrs. Brunn still lives 
in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Lehigh Avenue, 
as existing evidence of the truth of my 
statement, which being a secret so far 
as the world knows, will be an evi- 
dence better than any I can give that 
this is from 

James Whitcomb Riley 

[158] 



In May, 1921, Professor Keeler trans- 
mitted to me a spirit writing in pencil in the 
autograph of James Whitcomb Riley, as 
follows : — 

Fair spirit-mate mine — 

Elizabeth Kahle — 
Whose pure soul divine 

Heaven's heights could scale, 
Though a thousand names had been 

added to thine, 
And a thousand great men led a bridal 

line, — 
And a thousand new joys like the sun*s 

bright shine 
Had fallen on thee, 

Thou'd still be the one 
Created for me 
For Time's endless run. 

Gentle one, you shall find a way in 
this *after-land' to tell me much that 
even now I cannot divine. I am not 
reconciled to any thought, any bright 
anticipation, other than meeting you. 
Well said that this avenue seems to be 
the only satisfactory one for me to 
reach you. You cannot do for me, 
dear; it is for me to do for youl You 
cannot measure your earth stay. Don't 
psychologize yourself into passing soon. 
Earth denied us much; but heaven 

1159] 



has observed the shortcoming and will 
right it. 

Where and how shalt thou earliest 
meet me? 
What are the words you first will 
say? 
By what name hast thou learned to 
greet me? 
James, just now, — But that other 
day? 

With the self-same sunlight upon us, 
I am waiting, dear love, somewhere, 

He you would honor, he that you wish 
for. 
Thy king, thy loved one 'over there.'* 

James Whitcomb Riley 

The signature on this card is identical 
with that on the slate-message, and in 
about the center there is a pencil drawing 
of two hearts pierced by an arrow. 

I hereby declare that the facts set out in 
these pages are true to the best of my belief 
and recollection; that the slate-writing is 



*As to what, if any, part Riley's spirit took in dictating these 
lines, or any of the preceding verses, is a question upon which 
the opinions of readers may differ; but certainly all must agree 
that he could hardly have written such mediocre verse while 
in his mortal state. — Ed. 

[160] 



the original, and the message was trans- 
mitted while the slate was being held in my 
hands; that the pencil message in Riley's 
autograph is as received; that the forty- 
four letters and their accompaniments are 
the originals received by me from James 
Whitcomb Riley ; that they are in his auto- 
graph, and that they have been in my pos- 
session since their receipt; that none of 
them have ever been published, and that 
not more than ten people have ever read 
the originals. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Brunn 
nee Elizabeth Kahle." 

"Sworn to and subscribed before me this 
25th day of August, 1921. 

C. C. Allen, 
Notary Public J' 



11611 



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